Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/30

 which will burn the earth, all men then living, and all things upon the earth. ”And the earth and the works which are in it shall be burnt up." (2 Pet. iii. 10.) All shall become one heap of ashes. 2 After the death of all men, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again." (1 Cor. xv. 52.) St Jerome used to say: “As often as I consider the day of judgment, I tremble. Whether I eat or drink, or whatever else I do, that terrible trumpet appears to sound in my ears, arise ye dead, and come to judgment" (in Matt, c. v.); and St. Augustine declared, that nothing banished from him earthly thoughts so effectually as the fear of judgment. 3 At the sound of that trumpet the souls of the blessed shall descend from Heaven to be united to the bodies with which they served God on Earth; and the unhappy souls of the damned shall come up from Hell to take possession again of those bodies with which they have offended God. Oh! how different the appearance of the former, compared with that of the latter! The damned shall appear deformed and black, like so many firebrands of Hell; but the just shall shine as the sun." (Matt xiii 43) Oh! how great shall then be the happiness of those who have fortified their bodies by works of penance! We may estimate their felicity from the words addressed by St. Peter of Alcantara, after death, to St. Teresa: “O happy penance! which merited for me such glory.” 4. After the resurrection, they shall be summoned by the angels to appear in the valley of Josaphat. “Nations, nations, in the valley for destruction for the day of the Lord is near." (Joel iii. 14.) Then the angels shall come and separate the reprobate from the elect, placing the latter on the right, and the former on the left. ”The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from the Just. ”(Matt. xiii 49). Oh! How great will then be the confusion which the unhappy damned shall suffer! “What think you, ” says the author of the Imperfect Work, “must be the confusion of the impious, when, being separated from the just, they shall be abandoned?”(Hom liv.) “This punishment alone” says St. Chrysostom, “would be sufficient to