things?”[1] as if He knew nothing of it, although He understood more of it than any one, and felt all the agony of His bitter death. Our Lord’s design in this, says Silveira, was to show that all He suffered in His cruel passion seemed as trifling to Him in comparison to the present happiness of His glorified body as if He had forgotten all about it; and therefore He asked: What things? What was done to Him? The same, I say, would be the answer of all the saints in heaven; what? they would say; what have we done on earth? What martyrdom, or penance and mortification, or trouble and sorrow? It is not worth while to speak of those things, nor to ask a question about them. We have forgotten them long ago; we never think of them unless to our own greater consolation, because we have undergone them. They are all nothing compared to the joy we now have; our sorrow was over in a moment; now we rejoice in eternal delights, in which our bodies shall have their share too on that day when we shall hear the sweet voice of our Judge saying to us: “Come, ye blessed.”
Exhortation to reflect often on this invitation. “Look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand.” My dear Christians, lift up your heads, or better, your hearts, in spirit. Whenever a temptation to sin attacks you, or some tribulation comes in your way in the service of God, or any cross embitters your life: look up at once to heaven! Think of the last day of the world; imagine that you already hear the words of your Judge: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Ah, and think at the same time: is then this joyful invitation, which I so long and desire to receive, not powerful enough to keep me for a short time from forbidden pleasures, or to enable me to bear patiently for a while these pains, this sickness, this trouble, this cross and trial?
After the example of the holy penitent Pelagia. Thoughts of this kind made a wonderful penitent of St. Pelagia, who was once a notorious sinner. She could hardly form a good desire for anything supernatural; she was sunk in the mire of impurity; but on one occasion curiosity and perhaps too the wish to show herself off and excite others to unlawful desires, impelled her to go to a church, in which the holy Bishop Nonnus was preaching to the people on the sentence of the Judge on the last day. This so touched her heart that through shame
- ↑ Qui aunt hi sermones, quos confertis ad invicem, ambulantes, et estis tristes? Tu solus peregrinus es in Jerusalem? Quibus ille dixit: quæ?—Luke xxiv. 17–19.
