Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/289

 we please; we are but the administrators of them; and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. ” For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it be good or evil." (2 Cor. v. 10.) This is the precise meaning of that ” give an account of thy stewardship," in the gospel of this day. ” You are not," says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, ” a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them." I will place before your eyes Today the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when we shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly, when she shall be condemned. First Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be presented to the Judge. 1. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." (Heb. ix. 27.) It is of faith that we shall die, and that after death a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of God’s judgment, and the uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzia trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment; and to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said: "Ah! father, it is a terrible thing to appear before Christ in judgment." After spending so many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: ” What shall become of me when I shall be judged ?" The venerable