the waves;”[1] so when you behold those signs be sure that the angry Judge shall soon come to condemn yon to hell if you do not repent and amend your lives. What else, then, do the manifold signs that are to succeed each other signify, if not that God does not wish the sinner to be lost, and that He intends to warn him to do penance in time, so as to escape the divine anger?
And bring them to repentance. Shown from Scripture. When the disobedient Absalom rebelled against his father David with intention of usurping the crown, David at once raised an army and marched against him. Who would not have thought that the father’s intention was to punish his undutiful son and put him out of the way? Yet his loving, paternal heart was quite differently disposed. When he sent out his generals to fight, his strictest injunction on them was, “Save me the boy Absalom.”[2] Whatever you do, see that he escapes unhurt. His wish was not merely that his son should not be killed, but that he should be taken care of: “Save me the boy!” But did David act consistently in this? If he wished Absalom to be saved, why did he send an army against him? Or was he forced to do so in order to protect himself? Otherwise could he not have kept his army at home if he wished his son to come to no harm? Truly he might have done all that, says St. Augustine; but he wished to humble the pride of his rebellious son. I will show him, thought he, that I am not wanting in the power to punish him, so that, frightened at the sight of my army, he may submit and return to his father; but my generals must know that I do not desire his destruction, and therefore I command them to be careful of him and do him no harm. Such, too, is the reason why the Almighty God will assume the appearance of anger when, as we have seen in the last sermon, He will with terrible portents call all creatures to arms to conquer sinners, His rebellious children. His object, namely, is to chastise their disobedience in such a way that through fear of the impending last judgment and the signs that are to precede it they may humble themselves, and by doing timely penance gain eternal life. “Save Me the boy,” He says in His fatherly, loving heart. Save Me the souls of My children, although they are rebels and disobedient!
God acted And as we read in Holy Writ, such is the manner in which
