Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/604

 us fear,  not  so  much  him  who  kills  the  body,  but rather him  who  after  he  hath  killed  the  body  can destroy both  soul  and  body  unto  hell. The greatest saints, SS. Ambrose, Basil,  Jerome,  etc.,  felt,  confessed, and  taught  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  St.  Augustine, while  assigning  it  as  the  cause  of  his  own conversion, declares  it  to  be  the  climax  of  every  call to repentance. This, no  doubt,  is  why  the  Church  in her  liturgy  so  often  addresses  herself  to  our  sense  of fear,  as,  for  instance,  on  the  first  Monday  in  Lent, and again  in  the  gospels  of  the  cockle  and  good wheat, and  the  net  cast  into  the  sea,  and  especially on this,  the  last,  and  on  next  Sunday,  the  first,  of  the Ecclesiastical Year,  in  the  awful  pictures  of  the  Last Judgment.

Brethren, the  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek  why  the gospel of  the  year's  last  Sunday  should  be  the  gospel of the  last  day,  but  it  is  not  so  clear  why  on  the  first Sunday of  Advent  the  Church  takes  for  her  theme the terrors  of  judgment. Her object  in  placing  in such  close  juxtaposition  Christ's  first  and  last  coming is  to  remind  us  that,  while  contemplating  God's infinite  mercy  in  the  person  of  the  humble  and  pathetically helpless  babe,  we  must  not  forget  His  equally infinite justice,  to  be  revealed  in  the  majestic  coming of the  Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead. Moreover, the portentous  events  which  shall  presage  the  Lord's second  coming  were  in  a  mystical  sense  realized  at His  birth. The Sun  of  Justice  was  darkened  when  the Word of  God  clothed  Himself  in  human  flesh,  and  the moon, God's  kingdom  on  earth. His Church,  which