Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/382

 deformed, and the enemies of this God. “I will set before thy face." (Ps. xlix. 21.) 10. The sight of all that God has done for the damned shall above all increase their torture. "The wicked shall see and shall be angry." (Ps. cxi. 10.) They shall see all the benefits which God bestowed upon them all the lights and calls which he gave them and the patience with which he waited for them. They shall, above all, see how much Jesus Christ has loved them, and how much he has suffered for the love of them; and after all his love and all his sufferings, they shall see that they are now objects of his hatred, and shall be no longer objects of his love. According to St. Chrysostom, a thousand hells are nothing compared with the thought of being hateful to Christ. ” Si mille quis ponat, gehennas, nihil tale dicturus est, quale est exosum esse Christo." (Hom xiv. in Matt.) Then the damned shall say: My Redeemer, who, through compassion for me, sweated blood, suffered an agony in the garden, and died on the cross bereft of all consolation, has now no pity on me! I weep, I cry out; but he no longer hears or looks to me! He is utterly forgetful of me. He once loved me; but now he hates and justly hates me; for I have ungratefully refused to love him. David says, that the reprobate are thrown into the pit of death. "Thou shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction." (Ps. liv. 24.) Hence St. Augustine has said: ” The pit shall be closed on top, it shall be opened at the bottom, it shall be expanded downwards; and they who refuse to know God shall be no longer known by him."“Puteus claudetur sursum, aperietur deorsum, dilatatibur in profundum: et ultra nescientur a Deo qui Deum scire noluerunt." (Hom, xvi., cap 50.) 11. Thus the damned see that God deserves infinite love, and that they cannot love him. St. Catherine of Genoa being one day assailed by the devil, asked him. who he was. He answered with tears: I am that wicked one who is deprived of the love of God. I am that miserable being that can never more love God. They not only cannot love God, but, abandoned in their sins, they are forced to hate him: their hell consists in hating God, whom they at the same time know to be