seen to laugh, while the bare mention of the last judgment in conversation or in a sermon was enough to make him shudder and grow pallid, till he resembled a corpse more than a living man.
Much more should sinners and tepid Christians fear. But, holy friends of God, why are you so fearful and timid? You have always endeavored to do the divine will in all things; for God’s sake you have renounced all earthly joys and pleasures; you have lived seventy, eighty, ninety years in strict penance, serving your God, and do you still fear His justice? And why should that be so? Look at that man, that woman, that youth, that maiden; they are not half so frightened as you, although their conscience reproaches them with many sins. Few are the hours they have spent duly serving God; they know naught of self-denial, mortification, chastising the flesh, inflicting penances on themselves; they are not accustomed to bear the least cross with patience; their thoughts are mostly directed to leading a comfortable life, to vanity, and a constant round of pleasures, and with all this they do not even think of the last judgment, to say nothing of fearing it; they eat, drink, laugh, play, and amuse themselves as calmly as if they had not to appear before any Judge. In truth, my dear brethren, I am not able to explain this. Either those holy souls, so enlightened by God, were the victims of an unreasonable fear, or they merely pretended to be afraid, or else many of us do not know what they had to fear. For if David, a man after God’s own heart, who washed his couch with tears of repentance, and Job, who had not his equal for piety in his day, and SS. Anthony, Hilarion, Arsenius, Agathon, and others whose austerities were prodigious—if they feared to appear before the tribunal of God, what have they to rely on who devote the most of their time to the service of the world and of their bodies? Who will be safe in Babylon if Jerusalem is to be judged so strictly? If the pillars of the church tremble with fear, what is to become of the worm-eaten timbers? In a word, as St. Peter says, “if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”[1]
Conclusion and resolution to appease our Judge by leading better lives. O my God, what am I to do? Must I lose courage altogether and despair of my salvation? No; for there is still time for grace, and since that is so I will at once appease my Judge with sincere repentance. Now, while the mercy of God surpasses all His works, I will cry out with a contrite heart in the words of the
- ↑ Si justus vix salvabitur, impius et peccator ubi parebunt?—I. Pet. iv. 18.
