mighty and all-knowing Judge. “Then they shall see,” says the Evangelist, “the Son of man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty.”[1] He will be the Judge of whom Moses has said: “The Lord is as a man of war: Almighty is His name.”[2] A God whose might no one can withstand, whose hand no one can escape: “God, whose wrath no man can resist,” so speaks Job, “and under whom they stoop that bear up the world.”[3] A God whose word and sentence must be fulfilled without delay or opposition: “The word that I shall speak shall be accomplished, saith the Lord,”[4] as we read in the Prophet Ezechiel. A God before whose tribunal no respect will be had for exalted position, power, or riches, or persons. St. John writes in the Apocalypse that he saw coming from the mouth of the Son of God a sharp sword: “From His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword.”[5] The justice of the divine Judge is a terrible sword that cuts on all sides; it is the same to Him whether the guilty one is great or small, rich or poor, general or common soldier, prince or peasant. No, O great God! Thy sword is not like that wielded by earthly judges, which the least opposition often blunts and bends; Thine is immovable. “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”[6] Thou wilt shatter them: not like a vase of gold or silver, the broken pieces of which are still valuable, but like an earthen vessel that is useless once it is broken. It is not only against poor, weak, and simple mortals that Thou wilt show Thy omnipotence; but above all, the great and mighty ones of earth shall feel Thy anger; in humiliating and annihilating them Thou wilt prove to the world what a great and mighty Lord Thou art, and what poor, mean worms of earth they are when compared to Thee. For Thou sayest Thyself: “To him that is little mercy is granted: but the mighty shall be mightily tormented.”[7] “For God will not except any man’s person, neither will He stand in awe of any man’s greatness.”[8]
And He will The mighty power of this Judge was not visible when He was
- ↑ Tunc videbunt Filium hominis venientem in nube cum potestate magna, et majestate.—Luke xxi. 27.
- ↑ Dominus quasi vir pugnator; omnipotens nomen ejus.—Exod. xv. 3.
- ↑ Deus, cujus iræ nemo resistere potest, et sub quo curvantur qui portant orbem.—Job ix. 13.
- ↑ Verbum quod locutus fuero, complebitur, dicit Dominus.—Ezech. xii. 28.
- ↑ De ore ejus gladius utraque parte acutus exibat.—Apoc. i. 16.
- ↑ Reges eos in virga ferrea, et tanquam vas figuli confringes eos.—Ps. ii. 9.
- ↑ Exiguo enim conceditur misericordia; potentes autem potenter tormenta patientur.—Wis. vi. 7, 8.
- ↑ Non enim subtrahet personam cujusquam Deus, nec verebitur magnitudinem cujusquam.
