“that time shall be no longer.”[1] Ah, heavenly Father, lie will exclaim like the rich man crying out to Abraham; Father of mercy! overflowing Fountain of sweetness, at least allow one drop of water, although that is but a small comfort, allow one drop to fall down to cool the intensity of this heat even for a moment! But not even that comfort can I hope to have for all eternity! Jesus Christ, my Saviour! think of the blood Thou hast shed for me: give me a moment’s rest and respite, a slight alleviation of my pains! No; the door is locked; 1 know thee not! Vain wishes and desires, that will never be fulfilled for all eternity! Ah, my God! if I cannot be with Thee, then cast me back into my original nothingness, from which Thou hast drawn me! With one breath of Thy mouth Thou hast called me into being and created me; now 1 only desire another breath which shall reduce me again to nothing! But in vain do I wish for this. They will seek death and not find it for eternity. So that there is nothing but despair, suffering without end, misery without end, Are without end! Accursed will that refused to will aright when thou couldst do so; now thou dost will, but shalt never be able to carry out thy wishes!
Moral lesson: we are now free to do what the damned shall eternally wish in vain to do. My dear brethren, to my mind these remorseful and despairing thoughts shall form the most terrible torment of the damned, You can easily see the lesson we should learn from this meditation. What all the reprobate in hell are eternally wishing for and can never have, that is now in our power. What the damned did not wish for during life, alas! that is the very thing that most men on earth do not wish for, and therefore hell is daily filling with souls—two considerations that we should take deeply to heart. Of the first St. Augustine says: we receive two kinds of lives from the Creator: one here in time, the other in eternity; whether the first is to be happy or miserable rests not with us to decide; God has reserved to Himself the right of arranging all that; as to the happiness or misery of the other, it is now a matter of choice for us, and the Lord has left it to our own free will. Whether I am rich or poor, sick or well, honored or despised, in joy or in sorrow during time, depends not on me, no matter how my inclinations tend; I must wait for the providence of God to settle things for me; but whether I live in joy or misery in eternity, in heaven or in hell, that depends
- ↑ Quia tempus non erit amplius.—Apoc. x. 6.
