Delivered to the people in the basilica of Saint Peter the Apostle, on the second Sunday of the Advent of the Lord. At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: There shall be signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves, men withering away for fear and expectation of the things which shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of the heavens shall be moved. And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and majesty. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. And he spoke to them a similitude: Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now bring forth fruit out of themselves, you know that summer is near.
So likewise you, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near. Amen I say to you, this generation shall not pass away until all things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Our Lord and Redeemer, dearest brethren, desiring to find us prepared, announces what evils shall follow the aging world, that He may restrain us from love of it. He makes known how great calamities forerun its approaching end, so that if we are unwilling to fear God in tranquility, we may at least, worn down by the calamities, dread His judgment as near at hand. For to this reading of the holy Gospel, which your fraternity has just heard, the Lord a little above premised, saying:
Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be great earthquakes in various places, and pestilences and famines (Luke 21:10-11). And with certain things interposed, He added this which you have just heard: There shall be signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves. Of all these things, assuredly, some we already discern to have been done, others we dread as about to come near. For that nation rises up against nation, and their distress presses upon the lands, we already discern in our times more than we read in the books. That the earthquake overthrows innumerable cities — from the other parts of the world you know how frequently we have heard it. Pestilences we suffer without ceasing.
But signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars, we do not yet openly see; yet that these too are not far off, we gather from the very change of the air. Although before Italy was delivered to be smitten by the gentile sword, we saw fiery battle-lines in the sky, glittering with that very blood of the human race which was afterward shed. But the confusion of the sea and of the waves has not yet newly arisen. Yet since many things foretold are already fulfilled, there is no doubt that the few which remain shall follow also, because the certainty of things to come is the exhibiting of things past.
These things, dearest brethren, we therefore say, that your minds may awaken to the pursuit of watchfulness, lest they grow numb through security, lest they languish through ignorance, but that fear may ever rouse them, and solicitude confirm them in good work, weighing this which is subjoined by the voice of our Redeemer: Men withering away for fear and expectation of the things which shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of the heavens shall be moved. For what does the Lord call the powers of the heavens, if not the angels, archangels, thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers, which at the coming of the strict Judge shall then appear visibly to our eyes, that they may then strictly exact of us that which the invisible Creator now bears with even-mindedness?
Whereupon it is also added: And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and majesty. As if it were openly said: In power and majesty they shall see Him whom, set in humility, they refused to hear, so that they may then feel His strength so much the more strictly, as now they do not incline the neck of the heart to His patience. But since these things are said against the reprobate, presently the words are turned to the consolation of the elect. For it is also added: But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. As if the Truth openly admonished His elect, saying:
When the plagues of the world multiply, when the terror of judgment is shown by the powers being shaken, lift up your heads — that is, make your hearts glad — because while the world, of which you are not friends, is being ended, near draws the redemption which you have sought. For in Sacred Scripture the head is often put for the mind, because just as the members are governed by the head, so also thoughts are ordered by the mind. To lift up the heads, therefore, is to raise our minds to the joys of the heavenly homeland. Those, then, who love God are bidden to rejoice and be glad at the end of the world, because plainly they soon find Him whom they love, while there passes away that which they have not loved.
For far be it that any faithful man who desires to see God should mourn over the calamities of the world, which he is not ignorant is ended by those same calamities of his. For it is written: Whosoever will be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4). He, therefore, who does not rejoice at the approaching end of the world, testifies himself to be its friend, and thereby is convicted of being an enemy of God. But far be this from the hearts of the faithful, far from those who both believe through faith that there is another life, and love it through their working. For to mourn over the destruction of the world belongs to those who have planted the roots of the heart in love of it, who do not seek the life to come, who do not even suspect that it exists.
But we who have come to know the eternal joys of the heavenly homeland ought to hasten to them as quickly as possible. It is to be desired by us to travel more swiftly, and to arrive there by a shorter way. For by what evils is the world not pressed? What sadness, what adversity does not straiten us? What is mortal life but a road? And consider what a thing it is, my brethren, to grow weary in the labor of the road, and yet to be unwilling that the same road be ended. But that the world ought to be trodden underfoot and despised, our Redeemer manifests by a provident comparison, when He immediately adds: Behold the fig tree and all the trees; when they now bring forth fruit out of themselves, you know that summer is near. So likewise you, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near.
As if He plainly said: Just as by the fruit of the trees the nearby summer is known, so by the ruin of the world the kingdom of God is recognized to be near. By which words assuredly it is shown that the fruit of the world is its ruin. For to this it grows, that it may fall. To this it germinates, that whatever it has germinated it may consume with disasters. And well is the kingdom of God compared to summer, because then the clouds of our sorrow pass away, and the days of life grow bright with the brightness of the eternal sun. All which things are confirmed with great certainty, when the sentence is subjoined by which it is said: Amen I say to you, this generation shall not pass away until all things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
For nothing in the nature of corporeal things is more durable than heaven and earth, and nothing in the nature of things passes away so swiftly as speech. For words, so long as they are unfinished, are not words; but when they have been finished, they now are entirely no more, because they cannot be completed except by passing away. He says, therefore: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. As if He plainly said: Everything that is durable among you is not durable unto eternity without change; and everything that among me is discerned to pass away is held fixed and without transit, because my speech, which passes, expresses sentences that remain without mutability. Behold, my brethren, now we discern what we were hearing. The world is pressed by new and multiplying evils daily.
Out of that innumerable multitude, you behold how many of you remain; and yet still daily scourges press, sudden falls oppress, new and unforeseen disasters afflict us. For just as in youth the body is vigorous, the breast remains strong and unimpaired, the neck sinewy, the lungs full; but in the years of old age the stature is bent, the dried-up neck droops, the breast is pressed with frequent sighs, strength fails, the panting breath cuts short the speaker's words — for even if illness be absent, very often health itself is a sickness to the senses: so the world in its earlier years flourished as in youth, was robust for propagating the offspring of the human race, green with the health of bodies, rich with abundance of things;
But now the world itself is bowed down by its very old age, and, as though driven toward a death close at hand, is pressed by ever-increasing afflictions. Do not, therefore, my brethren, love that which you see cannot long endure. Fix in your minds the apostolic precepts, by which he admonishes us, saying: 'Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world; for if any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him' (1 John 2:15). The day before yesterday, brethren, you learned how by a sudden whirlwind aged trees were uprooted, houses were destroyed, and churches were overturned from their foundations. How many, at evening, sound and unharmed, supposed that they would be doing something on the morrow, and yet in that very night were carried off by a sudden death, caught in the snare of ruin?
But we must consider, most beloved, that to accomplish these things the invisible Judge moved the breath of the faintest wind, stirred up the storm of a single cloud, undermined the earth, and shook the foundations of so many buildings that were to fall. What, then, will this Judge do when He shall come in His own person, and His wrath shall blaze forth to the punishment of sinners, if He cannot now be borne when He strikes us through the faintest cloud? In the presence of His wrath what flesh shall stand, if, when He but moved a wind and undermined the earth, He stirred up the air and laid low so many buildings? Paul, considering this severity of the Judge who is to come, says: 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God' (Heb. 10:31). This the Psalmist expresses, saying:
'Our God shall come manifestly, our God, and He shall not keep silence. A fire shall burn before Him, and round about Him a mighty tempest' (Ps. 49:3). For a tempest and a fire accompany the severity of so great a justice, because the tempest examines those whom the fire is to consume. Therefore, dearest brethren, set that day before your eyes, and whatever now is deemed grievous is made light in comparison with it. For concerning that day it is said through the prophet: 'The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and exceeding swift. The voice of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty man shall be in tribulation. That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and whirlwind, a day of the trumpet and alarm' (Zeph. 1:14ff.).
Concerning this day the Lord again says through the prophet: 'Yet once more, and I will move not only the earth, but heaven also' (Hag. 2:22 [2:6]). Behold, as we said before, He moved the air, and the earth did not stand firm; who then shall endure it when He shall have moved heaven? And what shall we call the terrors that we behold, save the heralds of the wrath that follows? Wherefore it is necessary also to consider that these tribulations are as different from that final tribulation as the person of a herald differs from the power of a judge. Therefore, dearest brethren, ponder that day with all your intention, correct your lives, change your ways, overcome the evils that tempt you by resisting them, and punish with weeping the sins you have committed.