bate; you are condemned and cast off; I know you no more; you are not members of Mine; you will never have part with Me, and therefore I have not and cannot have any pity for you in your eternal misery.
Because he has no one to plead for him. Finally, where are the patrons, the petitions, the sighs and for appeals for mercy? Where are the tears that should flow on the last day to implore pardon for the sinner? Unhappy sinner, look around you and see if there is anyone to put in a word for you with your Judge! Look up! See Mary the Mother of mercy, the Refuge of sinners; she can do anything with her divine Son; perhaps she may help you? Look up and see the great host of saints, friends and children of God, the choirs of angels and ministers at the great Throne; can they do something for you? Alas! a vain hope. They, too, know you no longer! “The sun shall be darkened,” says the Gospel of that terrible day: and not only will the Sun of justice, Jesus Christ, be obscured for the sinner, but also “the moon shall not give her light:” Mary, that bright Moon, shall have no light for him; “and the stars shall fall from heaven:” the chosen saints, those brilliant stars in the firmament,, shall fall, that is, they shall have neither the power nor the will to help the sinner by even a single word uttered in his favor; “the powers of heaven shall be moved:” that is, the angels shall rise up against the sinner and drive him out of the chosen flock of Christ as a loathsome goat. And is there no one then to implore the mercy of the Judge for him? No; not one.
Because all the just shall cry out for vengeance on him.
But if, on the contrary, many voices shall be raised to embitter the Judge’s anger, what shall then become of the sinner’s hope? If an earthly judge saw before him the bleeding corpse of a murdered man, which in itself cries loudly enough for vengeance, and heard moreover the lamentations of the widow, the cries of the poor orphans calling out: Justice, O judge! there is the assassin who murdered our dear one and reduced us to this destitute condition, for we have no one now to provide for us; justice therefore on the wretch! let there be no mercy for him! what would you think, my dear brethren? There is no doubt that even if the judge were at first inclined to be merciful, those circumstances would inflame him with anger and turn his compassion into fury. And, O sinner! there shall be similar voices crying out for vengeance on you at the last day. Your own soul shall cry out against your body and say: this is the wretch that