Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/250

 towards me when I was in enmity with God. Circuibat super me fidelis a longe misericordia tua." The Lord treated you, brethren, in a similar manner. As often as you sinned you banished him from your souls. The wicked have said to God: "Depart from us." (Job xxi. 14.) And, instead of abandoning you, what has the Lord done? He has placed himself at the door of your ungrateful hearts, and, by his knocking, has made you feel that he was outside, and seeking for admission. ” Behold I stand at the gate and knock." (Apoc. iii. 20.) He, as it were, entreated you to have compassion on him, and to allow him to enter. "Open to me, my sister." (Cant. v. 2.) Open to me; I will deliver you from perdition; I will forget all the insults you have offered to me if you give up sin. Perhaps you are unwilling to open to me through fear of becoming poor by restoring ill-gotten goods, or by separating from a person who provided for you? Am not I, says the Lord, able to provide for you? Perhaps you think that, if you renounce a certain friendship which separates you from me, you shall lead a life of misery? Am I not able to content your soul and to make your life happy? Ask those who love me with their whole hearts, and they will tell you that my grace makes them content, and that they would not exchange their condition, though poor and humble, for all the delights and riches of the monarchs of the earth. Second Point. Mercy of God in waiting for sinners to return to him. 5. We have considered the divine mercy in calling sinners to repentance: let us now consider his patience in waiting for their return. That great servant of God, D. Sancia Carillo, a penitent of Father John D’Avila, used to say, that the consideration of God‟s patience with sinners made her desire to build a church, and entitle it ” The Patience of God." Ah, sinners! who could ever bear with what God has borne from you? If the offences which you have committed against God had been offered to your best friends, or even to your parents, they surely would have sought revenge. When you insulted the Lord he was able to chastise you;