occasion. To comfort yourselves then and alleviate your sorrows, say to yourselves: what I am now suffering shall come to an end; it will not last long; every day brings me nearer to my release. If I am poor and destitute for a short time, this very poverty is a sure sign of future riches in heaven. If I am despised, persecuted by the world, and abandoned by men, this humiliation is a sign of my approaching glory and honor in the society of the elect in heaven. If I now suffer injury and loss in my worldly goods, this loss is a sign of my future gain, of a treasure that awaits me in heaven. If I now weep with sorrow and trouble, it is a sign of my future joy in heaven. If I am now sickly and weak, it is a sign of future eternal well-being in heaven. If I am now obliged to work hard every day in order to support myself and those depending on me, it is a sign and forerunner of future eternal repose in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, O my God, I will resign myself to Thy will and providence: with the help of Thy grace I will suffer as long, how, and whatever Thou mayest will me to suffer! No matter how great my troubles may be, they shall not be equal to the joys of heaven that Thou hast promised me. “Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and Our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” With this consolation I will rejoice in all my trials, expecting the fulfilment of that most blessed hope and the coming of the great glory of my God and Saviour. “I know,” I will say with Job, “that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth and in my flesh I shall see my God. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold: this my hope is laid up in my bosom.”[1] This one hope is comfort enough for me. Amen.
Another introduction for the second Sunday of Advent.
Text.
Euntes renuntiate Joanni quæ audistis, et vidistis.—Matt. xi. 4.
“Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen.”
Introduction.
All that John required was to know the signs wrought by Our
- ↑ Scio enim quod Redemptor meus vivit, et in novissima die de terra surrecturus sum,.…et in carne mea videbo Deum meum. Quem visurus sum ego ipse, et oculi mei conspecturi sunt; reposita est hæc spes mea in sinu meo.—Job xix. 25–27.
