men, and that you derive from His death, by which He reconciled to His Father the whole world that was condemned to eternal death. As often as you deliberately committed a grievous sin you made the almighty God your enemy, and deserved to be tortured in the terrible fire of hell forever with the demons. The sentence was already pronounced against you; your case was utterly lost as far as it depended on you; there was nothing more to be done but to carry out the sentence. And who saved you from that misery? By yourself you would never have dared to appear before the face of the angry God; that is, your natural powers were not able to win His favor and friendship for you. Was not Christ the Saviour, who acted as your mediator and advocate when He lent you, as it were in the holy sacrament of penance, the infinite merits of His passion and death, and offered them up for you to His eternal Father, thus restoring you to the grace and friendship of God? And not once only did He do that for you, but perhaps seven and seventy times. Think of this now, and say with thankful heart: O dearest Friend and most loving Saviour! what do I not owe Thee! If I had not Thee as my Advocate, where should I have been long ago? I must thank Thee that I am not now in hell!
But he has despised Him and persecuted Him to death. Wo to you, O mortal! if you offend, insult, and reject this Advocate and Intercessor! Yet that is what you have already done, and done in a most outrageous manner, not merely once, but as often as you have fallen again into the sins you confessed, so often have you thrust Christ out of your heart, and said in the words of the citizens in the Gospel: “We will not have this Man to reign over us;”[1] I will not have Christ as my Advocate; I do not want His intercession. Nevertheless with a patience greater than any man could use towards one like himself, that same Saviour has hitherto been your constant Friend, and He will remain so as long as there is a breath in your body, always ready to act as your Mediator and Advocate, and even in the very last moment of your sinful life to reconcile you to His angry Father. But wo to you, and wo to you forever, if you despise to the end this Friend who will come when you know not, at the hour of your death!
Christ as Judge will be revenged For this most faithful Friend of yours will then become your sworn Enemy to avenge on you His slighted friendship and to
- ↑ Nolumus hunc regnare super nos.—Luke xix. 14.
