often had to groan under the pressure of adversity; but now, when you shall see those signs of the spring and eternal summer, “look up and lift up your heads: because your redemption is at hand.” Be ready! Raise your hearts and minds on high! Your redemption is near you; the works of virtue that you performed for Me are now about to bear fruit, and you shall be crowned with a crown of everlasting joys.
The saints were consoled by the thought of them. It was this thought that brought such consolation of spirit to St. Paul in his manifold trials and persecutions, as he writes to his disciple Timothy: “The time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” I have been true to my God, and now what have I to expect from Him? “As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love His coming.”[1] It is for that we should long unceasingly, as Our Lord Himself has taught us to pray daily: “Our Father, who art in heaven; Thy kingdom come!” “Seeing then,” says St. Peter, “that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversations and godliness; looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord.” Truly the heavens shall be burnt up, and the elements consumed by heat. “But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promises, in which justice dvvelleth. Wherefore, dearly beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent, that ye may be found undefiled and unspotted to Him in peace.”[2] Hasten in your desires with joy to meet the day of the Lord.
Instruction and warning to sinners to be converted in time. My dear brethren, what should be our thoughts on this subject? If these awful portents were visible in the heavens this very day to announce to us the end of the world, should we all have occasion to lift up our heads and to await the coming of our Judge with joy and exultation? Would you, O ambitious man, rejoice, who now value the esteem of men more than the grace and favor of your God? Would you rejoice, O avaricious man, whose greatest and only care every day of your life is to amass wealth in every possible way; whose hands and coffers
- ↑ Tempus resolutions meæ instat. Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi. In reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitiæ, quam reddet mihi Dominus in ilia die justus judex; non solum autum mihi, sed et iis qui diligunt adventum ejus.—II. Tim. iv. 6–8.
- ↑ Cum igitur hæc omnia dissolvenda sint, quales oportet vos esse in sanctis conversationibus et pietatibus, exspectantes et properantes in adventum diei Domini. No vos vero cœlos, et novam terram secundum promissa ipsius exspectamus. Propter quod, carissimi, hæc exspectantes, satagite immaculati et inviolati ei inveniri in pace.—II. Pet. iii. 11–14.
