Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/68

 insult his God; and, because he contends with a powerful antagonist, " he is armed with a fat neck." " A fat neck" is the symbol of ignorance, of that ignorance which makes the sinner say: This is not a great sin; God is merciful; we are flesh; the Lord will have pity on us. O temerity! illusion! which brings so many Christians to Hell.

Moreover, the man who commits a mortal sin afflicts the heart of God. " But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of the Holy One." (Isaias lxiii. 10.) "What pain and anguish would you not feel, if you knew that a person whom you tenderly loved, and on whom you bestowed great favours, had sought to take away your life! God is not capable of pain; but, were he capable of suffering, a single mortal sin would be sufficient to make him die through sorrow. " Mortal sin," says Father Medina, "if it were possible, would destroy God himself: because it would be the cause of infinite sadness to God." As often, then, as you committed mortal sin, you would, if it were possible, have caused God to die of sorrow; because you knew that by sin you insulted him and turned your back upon him, after he had bestowed so many favours upon you, and even after he had given all his blood and his life for your salvation.

IN the Gospel of this day we read that Jesus Christ, having been invited, went with his holy mother to a marriage of Cana of Galilee. " The wine failing, Mary