last day, so with those calamities. For what else are they but proofs of God’s mercy and goodness to sinners, whose only object is to humble men, chastise them in a fatherly manner, make them enter into themselves, repent of their sins, amend their lives, and so escape eternal punishment in hell? For public calamities are never sent on a country except on account of the sins of the people, in order to eradicate them and put a stop to them. This truth has often been preached from the pulpit, and therefore it requires no further proof; it is a truth founded on the infallible word of God, and one therefore of which the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have not the least doubt.
Shown by examples The seraphic St. Francis, as St. Bonaventure writes in his Life, being once on a journey, came to a country where there was nothing but weeping and lamentation among the people because their cattle were devoured by the wolves and their corn was destroyed by constant hail-storms. When Francis heard this he said to the people: “My dear people, do you know the cause of the evils you suffer from? Do you know the hand that inflicts them? It is God, who in His mercy visits you for your sins and misdeeds, that you may not be lost eternally. But do you wish to be freed from this scourge? Then the matter rests with yourselves; remove the cause; repent and amend your lives, and the evil will cease.” And wonderful to relate, because it is such a rare experience, this one exhortation was enough to induce the people to amend; they did penance for their sins and humbly begged God to forgive them, when, behold! the scourge ceased at once:[1] the wolves disappeared; the hail-storms, although they came now and then and did some damage in the neighborhood, melted before they arrived at the land of the penitent people, as if to say: we are not any longer commissioned by the Creator to injure this country. When Constantinople was shaken by terrible earthquakes, so that the people, filled with fear and anguish, knew not where to turn, St. John Chrysostom mounted the pulpit and began to preach in the following terms: Blessed be those earthquakes! What you, my brethren, think of them, I know not; the trouble and agitation you manifest give me to understand that you look on them as a calamity; but for my part I praise and bless my God on account of them, and am convinced He merits our sincerest gratitude for having sent them to
- ↑ Ab ilia hora cessaverunt clades.
