On compunction and on the watchfulness with which the coming of the Judge is to be awaited. I. In the foregoing discourses we have attempted somehow to convey a sense of the necessary compunction, and, as it were soliloquizing, we have wished, even though it be our own, to rouse the sloth of every heart; but because poverty of faith and the will of the flesh, together with the desires of the world, hearing these instructions of correction lukewarmly, despise them, the same things must very often be repeated; for if faith were not doubtful, even one of the aforesaid testimonies of the divine oracle would more than suffice. They believe, therefore, and do not believe, who neglect what they have heard; otherwise, if someone were to say to you today, O man, that the judge of this world wishes to burn you alive tomorrow;
what anxiety, I ask, what fear would press upon you? And on hearing this, if you had one free day's space, how much would you do? how would you cry out? and through what means would you run about? how humble, how mournful and squalid would you wander? Would you not pour out all your money upon those by whose intercession you believed you could escape? would you not make all your goods the ransom of your soul and reserve nothing, even though you were sparing and avaricious; but would you not squander all, give all for your life? And if anyone tried to delay or hinder you, would you not say: Let all things perish for my safety, let nothing remain; only that I may live? Why would you do this?
Because you would not doubt that, according to the sentence of a most severe judge, you would burn. But here you doubt, because you do not know how soon it will come; yet you are not ignorant that it will come, though you neglect it. We must therefore awake, we must watch, we must pray, according to the precept of our Saviour Jesus Christ our God, who says: Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly: for as a snare it will come upon all who sit upon the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:34-36). II.
If we hear and believe these things, our watchfulness will show our faith, and, when the squalid and torpid stupors of deadly drowsiness have been shaken off, may the sentence of the Lord our Saviour quicken our senses, so that, all mortal cares laid aside, we may be ever ready; awaiting, that is, the coming of the last day, on which either punishment or glory will receive us; and may the aforesaid word of the Lord sharpen the edge of our minds, by which he taught us to be ever watching and praying, that we be not as it were believing and not believing, and as it were hearing and not hearing;
and may we unwearyingly beseech, from the depth of our heart through Jesus Christ his Son, the unspeakable mercy of God the loving and good; let us ask, let us pray, that he may so deign to inspire his love in us as to join us to himself for ever, to bind us inseparably, to lift us from the earth, and meanwhile to make our senses companions of heaven, so long as we are set in this body of death; and that so we may await his coming without complaint, that when he appears we may run to meet him pleasingly, with joy and with the great confidence of charity. How blessed, how happy are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching (Luke 12:37)!
Blessed is the vigil in which men keep watch for God, the author of all things, who fills all and surpasses all. Would that he might deem me also worthy, vile though I be, yet his little servant, thus to rouse from the sleep of idleness, thus to kindle with that fire of divine charity, whereby the flame of his charity might blaze above the stars, the longing of his exceeding love, and the divine fire might ever burn within me. Would that I had that wood by which that fire might continually be nourished, fed, and set ablaze; and that that flame might be sustained which knows not how to be quenched, and knows not how but to be increased. Would that I were such by merits, that my lamp might ever burn by night in the temple of my Lord, that it might give light to all who enter the house of my God. III.
Lord, give me, I beseech you, in the name of Jesus Christ your Son, my God, that charity which never falls, that my lamp may know how to be kindled and know not how to be quenched; that it may burn for me and give light to others. Do you, O Christ, deign to kindle our lamps, our most sweet Saviour, that they may shine perpetually in your temple, and receive perpetual light from you the perpetual Light, that our darkness may be enlightened, but the darkness of the world may flee from us. So bestow your light, I pray, my Jesus, upon my lamp, that by its light there may appear to me that holy of holies which holds you, the eternal High Priest of eternal things, entering there into the entrances of that great temple of yours, that there I may unceasingly behold, gaze upon, and desire you alone;
that loving you alone I may behold, desire, and await you, and that my lamp may ever shine and burn before you. Be it yours, I beseech, most loving Saviour, to show yourself to us who knock, that, knowing you, we may love only you, love you alone, desire you alone, meditate on you alone day and night, ever think upon you; and may you deign to inspire your love in us in such measure as it befits you, who are God, to be loved and cherished; that your love may possess all our inward parts, that your love may possess us wholly, that your charity may fill all our senses, so that we may know how to love nothing besides you, who are everlasting; whereby so great a charity may not be able to be quenched in us by the many waters of this air, and of this earth, and of this sea, according to that saying:
And many waters could not quench charity (Cant. 8:7). May this be fulfilled in us also, at least in part, by your gift, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.