ing thee.”[1] I have worked hard for your salvation: “Thou hast forsaken Me, saith the Lord; thou art gone backward and I will stretch out My hand against thee, and I will destroy thee.”[2] I have begged of you to repent and abstain from sin, but My entreaties were in vain; now I shall lift up My hand against you, and pronounce on you the sentence of eternal damnation.
Conclusion and resolution of amendment. Ah, merciful God, refrain! I cannot and will not bear to hear that terrible sentence! I confess before heaven and earth that I have richly deserved reprobation by my sinful life; but hoping and trusting in Thy endless mercy, which still speaks for me, I sigh forth with a contrite heart in the words of Thy penitent servant Augustine: “O Lord, although I have done that for which Thou canst condemn me, Thou hast not lost that by which Thou art wont to save.”[3] Only grant me time and grace for true repentance; I will bewail all my past sins with sincere contrition, and candidly confess them to the priest. I now execrate and detest them above every other evil, because they have offended and insulted Thee, O God, most worthy of love! From this moment my firm resolution is (and I take the angels and elect as witnesses thereof) always to live according to Thy law and the maxims of Thy holy Gospel; Thee alone shall I love in future with my whole heart, and then I shall be able to say with more right and confidence: “When Thou shall come to judge, do not condemn me!”[4] Then I shall comfort myself with the hope of a better sentence, and expect to hear with Thy elect to my great joy and exultation the blessed invitation: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;” enter into the joy of your Lord. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.
Text.
Arescentibus hominibus præ timore.—Luke xxi. 26.
“Men withering away for fear.”
