their sins the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and the water swept them all away. “Likewise,” continues the Evangelist, “as it came to pass in the days of Lot: They did eat and drink; they bought and sold; they planted and built; and in the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.”[1]
So also shall they be surprised by the coming of the Judge. “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed.”[2] Should we not think that so many signs and portents—wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the persecutions of Antichrist, the disturbance of the elements—would be enough to make the men of that time watchful arid vigilant? But no! When the fear and terror caused by the signs shall be at an end, they shall resume their former mode of life. Following the opinion of St. Jerome writing on the words of St. Paul, “When they shall say peace and security, then shall sudden de struction come upon them,”[3] I maintain that when the signs shall have vanished men shall live in peace and quiet for a time (how long no one can say), and will continue in their former mode of life; and although the true faith shall then be general over the world, there shall be sinners who shall lead a very wicked life, and tepid Christians who shall lead a very slothful one. Under those circumstances then, when they least expect it, “in the twinkling of an eye,” as the Apostle says,[4] fire shall fall from heaven and reduce the world to ashes, and then the dreadful trumpet shall resound in all places, and the angel’s voice be heard crying out: “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!” There, my dear brethren, we have all the preparation that shall be made to introduce the great day of the general judgment. And what conclusion are we to draw from this? “Make straight the way of the Lord;” therefore we should now prepare ourselves most carefully for that day, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
Therefore Christ warns us to be This conclusion is not mine, but that of Jesus Christ, as He tells us Himself plainly in the Gospel of St. Matthew. For after
- ↑ Similiter sicut factum est in diebus Lot: edebant, et bibebant; emebant, et vendebant; plantabant, et ædificabant; Qua die autem exiit Lot a Sodomis, pluit ignem et sulphur de cœlo, et omnes perdidit.—Luke xvii. 28, 29.
- ↑ Secundum hæc erit qua die Filius hominis revelabitur.—Ibid. 30.
- ↑ Cum enim dixerint: Pax et securitas, tunc repentinus eis superveniet interitus.—I. Thess. v. 3.
- ↑ In ictu oculi.—I. Cor. xv. 52.
