SEVENTEENTH HOMILY. "And they heard the voice of the Lord God coming in the garden after the middle of the day. (III, 8)

ANALYSIS.

1. The speaker, after explaining that this passage should not be understood in a gross and material sense, says that the feeling and remorse of their sin forced Adam and Eve to hide, and he eloquently describes the strength and. the power of consciousness. he then shows the goodness of the Lord, who first comes to meet the guilty man, and questions him only to give him an opportunity to humble himself, and to obtain his pardon. - 2.- 4. He then admirably develops this word of God: "Adam, where are you? And shows all the weakness of the excuse he brings, by blaming the woman. 5. The question which the Lord next addresses to this one, and his answer which accuses the serpent, furnishes to the speaker this judicious reflection that Eve was free in the consent which she gave to the insinuations of the serpent. 6. But God, who had spoken kindly to Adam and Eve, cursed the serpent without speaking to him, to show him all his indignation, and mixed with this curse the first revelation called the mystery of redemption. - 7.-8. He then pronounces to the woman the judgment which condemns her to the pains of childbirth, and to submission to man; and the orator puts in the mouth of God a language at once mild and severe, rigorous and paternal. 9. Finally, Adam himself hears his sentence: the earth will be cursed in his work; he will make her fertile only by the sweat of her brow; and this during all the days of his life, until he returns to the dust from which he was shot. 10. After some reflections on this sentence, and its effects, the orator exhorts his hearers to preserve the memory of these great truths, and to render themselves worthy, by their Christian conduct, to obtain the eternal goods which the Son of God has deserved us by the mystery of the incarnation.

1. I think that yesterday I explained to you sufficiently and according to my strength what concerns the tree of the science of good and evil, so that now you understand, my dear brothers, why the Scripture gives it this name . I will then go on to the continuation of the account of Genesis, so that you may be better acquainted with the ineffable goodness of the Lord, and with that admirable providence with which he cares for all that concerns us. He had, in principle, created and arranged all things so that the man, that reasonable being out of his hands, should be filled with honors; and, wishing to equal him to the angels, he had formed a body endowed with glory and immortality. However, he did not entirely withdraw from him his mercy, when he saw him transgress his orders and brave the threats that were to hold him back. But even then, always like himself, he remembered that man was his creature. When the son of a patrician, forgetting his rank, is degraded by his vices, and from the summit of honors, falls into a deep debasement, his father feels his entrails being moved; but always good towards this unworthy child, he does not abandon him, and never ceases to assist him with his help and his counsels in order to remove him from the abyss and restore him his first dignity. And likewise, the good and merciful God is moved to the man who, with his wife, was seduced by the devil and believed in the pernicious advice of the serpent. So we see him running towards him like a charitable physician hastening to a patient whose ills and distress require his care and his art.

But if we want to understand even more the extent of this goodness, it will not be useless to resume the passage just read. And they heard the voice of the Lord God coming in the garden after the middle of the day; and Adam and his wife hid among the trees of the garden to avoid the presence of God. Here, my dear brothers, we must neither pass lightly on these words, nor stop as at the bark of words; but (95) we must consider with what condescension Scripture is proportioned to our weakness, and give to these words a meaning worthy of God and of our salvation. And indeed, these words taken literally would be unworthy of God, and would they not offer, I ask you, an absurd meaning? For what do we read in this passage of Genesis? They heard the voice of the Lord, who went into the garden after the middle of the day, and they hid themselves. What do you say, O Moses? does God walk? will we believe that he has feet, and will we have no more sublime idea of ​​him? but how would the One who fills the universe of his presence walk? and how He, whose heaven is the throne and the earth, would the footstool be shut up in the garden? It would be foolish to say it. What do these words mean: They heard the voice of the Lord, who was coming into the garden about the middle of the day? They teach us that the Lord wanted to make them feel their fault by bringing them to extreme anguish of mind and heart. This is what happened; for they were so ashamed that at the approach of God they hid themselves. As a result of their sin and disobedience, they had experienced remorse and confusion.

And indeed, this incorruptible judge, whom we call consciousness, rises up against man and accuses him aloud; he puts his sins before his eyes, and represents to him all the clumsiness. That is why God, in creating man, establishes within himself that censor that never stops and that can not be deceived. No doubt, one can steal one's faults and crimes from the knowledge of men, but it is impossible to hide them from consciousness; and in whatever place the guilty man transports himself, he carries within himself that consciousness which accuses him, disturbs him, tears him up, and never rests. She attacks him in the intimacy of the domestic hearth, on the forum and in the public meetings, and pursues him during feasts, during his sleep and when he wakes up. She never ceases to ask him to account for her faults, and to bring to her before her eyes the graver and the punishment. Such, a charitable physician, assiduously accompanies a patient, and, in spite of his rejections, persists in offering him his remedies and his good offices.

2. Besides, the main duty of the conscience is to remind us of our faults and to protest against their culpable forgetfulness; she presents us with the picture, if only to restrain us and prevent us from falling back into it. And yet, in spite of the support and the help of the conscience, and in spite of its violent reproaches and the remorse which rends our killer, and which are for our soul as cruel executioners, most men can not overcome their passions; also in what abyss would we fall, if it did not exist? It was therefore the reproaches of conscience that revealed to our first parents the approach of the Lord; and suddenly they hid themselves. Why did they do it? iM asking you. Because the conscience, like a harsh accuser, reproached them for their crime. And indeed, they had no other censor, nor any other witness of their sin than that which they carried within themselves; yet to the reproaches of conscience was added the privation of the glory which clothed them. Thus, the feeling of their nakedness warned them of the fault of their fault, and because they were ashamed of their grave disobedience, they tried to hide themselves. They heard, says the Scripture, the voice of the Lord God, who was coming into the garden after the middle of the day; and Adam and his wife hid among the trees of paradise to avoid the presence of God.

Nothing, then, is more sinister than sin, my dearest brethren, for as soon as man commits it, he fills him with confusion, and renders foolish those who shone before by the solidity of judgment. Hey! see Adam! it is the conduct of a fool; and yet he was endowed with the gift of prophecy and that high wisdom which had broken out in his works. But he hears the voice of the Lord advancing in the garden, and hides, like his wife, among the trees of paradise, to avoid the presence of God. Is not this a real trait of madness? What! God is present everywhere, he has drawn all creatures from nothing, and none is hidden from his eyes; he has formed the heart of man, and he knows all the secret affections of it; he scrutinizes the loins and the hearts, and he penetrates to the most intimate thoughts of the soul. And this is the one in whose eyes Adam and Eve are trying to hide. But do not be surprised, my dear brother, such is the sinner's method. He knows (96) that he can not avoid the presence of God, and yet he tries to avoid it.

The conduct of our first parents also had as its principle the shame which seized them, when sin had stripped them of their glorious immortality. This is proven by the very choice of their retreat, since they hid among the trees of earthly paradise. The rogue or lazy servants seek, under the impression of fear and chastisement, to hide themselves in every corner of the house, although they know well that they will not avoid the eye of an irritated master. And likewise Adam and Eve, not knowing where to take refuge, ran here and there in the terrestrial paradise. Nor is it without reason that Scripture designates the hour: They heard, she said, the voice of the Lord God who was coming into the garden after the middle of the day. She wants to make us know the extreme goodness of the Lord. He did not differ, therefore, for a moment in helping the sinful man, and as soon as he saw him fall, he hastened to run. at the first glance he sounded the depth of his wound, and to prevent its consequences and progress, he hastened to bring a beneficent device to it. Thus his goodness did not allow him to leave, even for a moment, the man deprived of all help.

The enemy of our salvation had given free rein to his rage; and because he envied the man the property he possessed, he had given him snares to make him fall from this happy state. But the Lord, whose providence and wisdom regulate our destinies, has seen both the malignancy of the devil and the weakness of man, it is this weakness which made him yield to the insinuations of his wife and fall into the shameful abyss. of sin. So the Lord suddenly appears, and, like a good and indulgent judge, he sits down on his tribunal, surrounded by fear and horror, and hears the affair with the greatest attention. He thus teaches us not to condemn our brothers without having thoroughly examined their conduct.

3. So let us listen, please, to this solemn questioning of the Judge's requests and the answers of the guilty, the sentence that strikes them, and the condemnation of the tempter who handed them these treacherous snares. But bring all your attention here, and shudder while attending to this judgment. When a mortal judge places himself on his court, quotes the culprits and subjects them to torture, a thrill of terror seizes the spectators. All want to hear the judge's requests and the defendants' answers. What will be our thoughts when, in our presence, God, creator of the universe, will come to trial with his creatures! And yet you will observe how, even here, divine clemency prevails over the severity of the judges of the earth.

So the Lord God called Adam, and said to him, Adam, where are you? In this interrogation itself, we find an astonishing mark of the supreme goodness of God; not only does he call Adam, but he himself calls him, in person: this is what the judges of the earth disdain for the guilty who are men like them and of the same nature as they are. You know that when sitting on their court, our judges report to the perpetrators of their conduct, they do not address them directly, but they use an intermediary who communicates to the accused the questions of the tried and the. judge the answers of the accused; it is used almost everywhere to make the criminals understand how much they have been damaged by committing the crime. God does not act the same, he questions directly: The Lord God therefore called Adam and. said Adam, where are you? These few words contain a great energy of thoughts. Because. first, it was in God an immense and ineffable goodness to call himself that great culprit who blushed with shame, and who dared neither open his mouth nor articulate a single word. Yes, to question him, and thus to give him the opportunity to implore his forgiveness, attests an infinite mercy. Adam, where are you? Oh ! that this question alone is at once full of strength and gentleness! It is as if God had said to him: What has happened? I left you in one state, and I find you in another. I had left you clothed in glory, and I find you in shameful nakedness. Adam, where are you? what is the cause of your misfortune? and who has plunged you into this abyss of evils? who is the scoundrel or thief who has taken away all your goods from you, and who has reduced you to this extreme indigence? who made you known nakedness, and who stripped you of that splendid garment of which I had clothed you? what sudden change! and what storm has suddenly engulfed all your riches? What have you done, that you wish to avoid him who has showered you with the greatest benefits, and who has raised you to so much honor? and what are you afraid to seek to hide yourself? is an accuser chasing you, and witnesses are confusing you? finally, where does this fear and terror come from?

But Adam answered, I heard your voice in the garden, and being naked, I was afraid, and I was hidden. (Gen. III, 10.) Then God said to him, "Eh! who taught you that you were naked? what is this new and unheard language? and who would have made known to you your state, if you yourself were not the author of this ignominy? you have eaten the fruit of the only tree of which I forbade you to eat. "Do you see what is the goodness and patience of the Lord?" He could, without addressing a single word to this great culprit, punish him on the spot as he had threatened; but he acts patiently, questions him, and listens to his answer. Moreover, he questions her a second time, as if to facilitate a defense which would enable him to use mercy and mercy. Great lesson! who teaches the judges that, in the exercise of their functions, they must neither speak inhumanly to the guilty, nor treat them with a cruelty that is only suitable for ferocious beasts. We must then show them some indulgence and some kindness, and in pronouncing on their fate, do not forget that they are our brothers. This thought that our origin is common will soften our hearts and soften the rigors of justice. It is therefore not without motive that the saint, Scripture, is proportioned here to our weakness, and employs this simple and familiar language. It invites us to imitate, according to our strength, the ineffable goodness of the Lord.

4. And the Lord said of Adam: Who taught you that you were naked except that you ate the fruit of the only tree I forbid you to eat? Yes, how would you have known your nakedness, and would you be ashamed if, by intemperance, you had transgressed my command? Appreciate, my dear brother, all the excellence of divine goodness. The Lord speaks to Adam as to a friend, and he treats this great culprit with gentle familiarity.

Who told you that you were naked, except that you ate the fruit of the only tree I had forbidden you to eat? Let us also observe the emphasis, and the secret irony of this expression: the fruit of the only tree, it is as if he had told him: did I narrowly restrict the use of the fruits of this garden? ? did I not place you in a rich abundance? and did not I forsake you all the fruits of earthly paradise except one? This defense was only meant to remind you that you had a Master, and that you had to obey him. Is it insatiable, therefore, that intemperance, which, unhappy with so many goods, has not abstained from this fruit alone? And how could you run to a disobedience that was to precipitate you into such an abyss of evil? What is it now of your sin? Did I not warn you both, and did not I want to restrain you by the fear of punishment? I have foretold all the consequences of your sin, and I have made you this defense to guard you against the seductive spirit. And today, such a black ingratitude does not make your fault irreparable? As a good father teaches a darling son, I have clearly told you my orders; and by allowing you the use of all the other fruits, I have formally excepted that one, so that you may retain all the goods I have given you. But you thought the advice of another better and more respectable than my command. That's why you despised it, and you ate forbidden fruit. Well ! What happened to you ? Today a hard experience reveals all the malice of this pernicious advice.

Do you see the clemency of the judge, his gentleness and his unalterable patience? Do you hear that language so full of condescension, and so high above our ideas and our thoughts? Finally, do you understand how the Lord opens the door of repentance to the sinful man, saying to him: Who taught you that you were naked, except that you ate the fruit of the only tree of which I had forbidden to eat? Was not it to him to declare that, in spite of his grave disobedience, he was still ready to forgive him? But let's listen to the culprit's answer. And Adam said, The woman you gave me for a companion, brought me fruit from that tree, and I ate it. This answer is in itself In cry of distress and pain; and it seems at first sight that it is a call to that divine mercy which always surpasses in kindness and indulgence the malice of our sins. And indeed, the Lord (98) came, by his ineffable patience, to touch the heart of Adam and make him feel the scorn of his fault; and now he seeks to apologize, saying, "The woman you gave me as a companion brought me fruit from that tree and I ate it. It is as if he had said: I have sinned, I know it, but the woman whom you gave me for a companion, and of whom you have said yourself: give to the man an aid which is like, was the cause of my fall. Could I suspect that this woman whom you had given me for a companion would be a subject of shame and ignominy? I only knew that you had formed it to be my consolation. You have given it to me, you have brought it to me, and I do not know what motive has led her to introduce me to the fruit I have eaten.

This answer seems at first sight to justify Adam; but in reality his fault was inexcusable. For how can you excuse me, could the Lord leave him again, the forgetfulness of my command, and the assent given to the woman rather than to my words? She offered you the fruit; either, but the memory of my defense, and the fear of punishment, were enough to distract you from eating it. Did you not know my orders, and did not you know my threats? In my provident tenderness I warned you both to avoid these misfortunes. So even though woman is the instigator of sin to you, you can not be innocent. Hey! Did not you have to be faithful to my command, repel the fatal present, and even represent to the woman the enormity of her fault. You are the head of the woman; and she was formed only for you. But you have reversed the order, and instead of holding it back, you let yourself be carried away by it. The members had to obey the head, and, by a guilty reversal, it was the members who commanded, so that ranks and order were overthrown. And that's how you fell into this deep humiliation, you who were clothed with glory and splendor.

Who could lament your misfortune and the loss of such valuable possessions? However, only you have done your misfortune, and you can only attribute the cause to your own weakness. For if you had not consented to it, the woman would never have dragged herself into this immense disaster. Did she use your prayers, reasoning, or seduction? It was enough for him to present you the fruit, and suddenly with extreme complacency you ate it, without remembering my defense. So you thought that I had deceived you, and that I had forbidden you the use of this fruit only to deprive you, by jealousy, of a still more glorious state. But how could I have deceived you, I who had filled you with so many goods! and was it not already a great goodness to have warned you in advance of the consequences of your disobedience? So I wanted you to avoid the misfortune where you fell. But you have despised everything, and today, that a hard experience makes you feel the enormity of your fault, it remains for you to find guilty, without accusing your wife.

5. So the Lord reproached Adam for the sin of his sin; and the latter, while confessing it, sought to justify himself by rejecting him on the woman. But let us now see how kindly this same God then addresses this one. And God, add the scripture, said to the woman, Why did you do that? You have heard your husband who accuses you of all this disobedience, and who puts the blame on you who had been given him to help him, and who had been drawn from his own substance only to be his consolation. . Why then, O woman, did you commit this sin, and why did you draw on him and on you this profound humiliation? What advantages does this criminal intemperance give you today, and what fruits do you derive from this guilty error? You have been seduced by your fault, and you have made your husband an accomplice to your sin.

But what does the woman answer? The snake deceived me, and I ate fruit. Do you see how she, too, seeks in her dread to excuse her disobedience? Adam had rejected his fault on the woman, saying: she picked the fruit and presented it to me, and I ate it. And so she confesses her sin, and finds no excuse except to say: the snake deceived me, and I ate fruit. This cursed animal was the cause of my fall, and it was his pernicious counsels that dragged me into this deep humiliation. He deceived me, and I ate fruit.

Let us not pass lightly on these words, my dearest brothers; for a careful examination will show us useful instructions. The judgments of the Lord are terrible and (99) frightening; but if we meditate carefully, they will be beneficial to our souls. Let us listen to Adam, who says to God: The woman you gave me as a companion introduced me to the fruit, and I ate it. Thus he acknowledges that there has been no compulsion or violence against him, and that he has acted voluntarily and with complete freedom. Eve only presented the fruit to her, and she exercised no pressure or violence on him. And in the same way she does not say, to excuse herself, that the snake has been inclined to eat the forbidden fruit in spite of herself. It limits itself to saying: the snake deceived me. Now it depended on her to reject seduction as to succumb to it: the snake deceived me, she said. It is therefore true that the enemy of our salvation, speaking by the organ of this accursed animal, gave a fatal advice, and deceived the woman. But he did not violate it, nor compel it: he used only fraud to accomplish his pernicious designs, and if he preferred the woman, it was because he thought she was more likely to be seduced. and to commit an irreparable fault.

The snake deceived me, and I ate fruit. See how good the Lord is. He is satisfied with this only admission, and he does not press Adam or Eve for new questions. And certainly, when he questioned them, it was not that he did not know their crime: he knew him and knew all the circumstances; He did not lower himself to enter into discussion with them, than in order to make his mercy better manifest, and to engage them to a humble and sincere confession; therefore he does not ask them new questions. No doubt it was fitting that God should make known to us the kind of seduction which had been presented to our first parents; but to show that he did not question them by ignorance of the fact, he is satisfied with a first answer. And indeed, in saying that the serpent had deceived her, and that she had eaten forbidden fruit, the woman easily allowed to guess the fatal hope of which the demon had flattered her by the organ of the serpent, promising her that they would become gods.

Have you observed how carefully the Lord questions Adam, and with what indulgence does he treat the woman? Have you also noticed how they are justified? So, now appreciate the ineffable mercy of this supreme judge. The woman said: The snake deceived me, and I ate forbidden fruit; and yet the Lord did not deign to interrogate this animal, nor to give it cause to defend itself. He did not ask him any questions, as he had done to the man and to the woman; but as soon as these presented their justification, he vented all his anger on the serpent, as on the author of the sin. For the Lord, in whose eyes nothing is hidden, was not unaware that the serpent had been the instrument of the trap where the black jealousy of the devil had brought down our first parents. See how he uses mercy and kindness towards them. He knew everything, yet he said to Adam, Where are you? and who taught you that you were naked? He also tells Eve: Why did you do that? But he holds a very different language to the serpent: And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you did this. Do you see the difference? God said to the woman, Why did you do that? And, to the snake: Because you did that. Yes, because you have lent yourself to this crime, and you have insinuated this perfidious advice; because you have favored the jealousy of the devil, and you have seconded his malice against my creature, you are cursed among all the animals and all the beasts of the earth; you will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and his. She will crush your head, and you will insidiously hurt her in the heel. (Gen. III, 14-15.)

6. Notice, I pray you, the order and arrangement of this passage, and you will find in it a precious witness of the goodness of God. The Lord first asked Adam, and then Eve; and when the latter had appointed his seducer, he disdained to listen to his defense, and fulminated against him a punishment which will last as long as his life. Henceforth, therefore, the sight alone of the serpent will remind men that they must repulse his perfidious counsels and avoid his misleading pitfalls. But perhaps you will ask why the serpent is punished, while it was only the instrument of the demon who alone caused all this disaster? Here again the ineffable goodness of the Lord breaks out. For just as a good father, not content with pursuing the murderer of his son, breaks and shatters the sword or dagger that was used for the crime, the Lord punishes the serpent that was the instrument of the malice of the devil, and wants the sight of this punishment (100) to proclaim the severity with which he treated the of my own. For if the instrument was punished so rigorously, what torture was not inflicted on him who put it into action!

Moreover, Jesus Christ reveals something to us in his Gospel, when he tells us that in the day of judgment he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you cursed; go to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt XXV, 41.) It is therefore for the devil that this fire has been prepared, which will never be extinguished; and what a more frightful destiny than that of those unfortunates who neglect their salvation, and thus expose themselves to share the tortures reserved for the devil and his angels! If, on the contrary, we wish to embrace virtue and observe the laws of Jesus Christ, we will secure this kingdom, of which he says: Come, my Father's beloved, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. . On one side are the eternal fires of hell, and on the other, if we are pious and fervent, the kingdom of heaven. May these thoughts encourage us to work for the salvation of our soul, to flee sin, and to avoid the pitfalls of the devil!

But if you are not too tired, I will speak again of the punishment inflicted on the serpent, in order to show you more and more how the divine mercy is exercised towards us. Besides, every day, a numerous competition surrounds the court of a judge who investigates the cause of some criminals; we spend whole days there, and we do not retire before the meeting is adjourned. For all the more reason, it is fitting for us to wait with holy readiness for the statement of the judgment which the Lord will pronounce against the serpent. He will inflict terrible punishment on him, because he has been the instrument of crime; and the sight of this sorrow will make us understand what eternal tortures the same God reserves for the devil. We will also see with what mercy he chastises Adam and Eve, to whom he addresses a severe remonstrance rather than inflicts a severe punishment; and we will conclude that we can not sufficiently admire the goodness of God nor praise his indulgent providence for us. Let us listen to the sacred writer: And the Lord God said to the serpent Because you have that, you are cursed among all the animals and all the beasts of the earth; you will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers: she will break your head, and you will insidiously wound her in the heel.

7. There is anger and indignation in these words, but the sin in which the devil, through the serpent's organ, carried our first parents, is great and enormous. Now the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you did this; because you have been the minister of the demon in his homicidal projects, and you have seconded his malice by serving as an organ to his bad counsels and poisoned flatteries; because you did that, and you helped to disinherit my creatures from my graces and benevolence, by lending you to the perfidious designs of the rebellious angel who, in punishment for his pride and his black jealousy, was precipitated from heaven on earth; because in all these horrible machinations you have shown yourself his docile instrument, I inflict on you a punishment that will last forever. So it will be enough for the devil to see you, so that he knows what tortures are reserved to him, and to the men, so that they learn to avoid his traps and to guarantee himself of his pitfalls, if they do not want one day to share his torments. Thus you are cursed among all animals, because you have made a treacherous use of the delicacy which distinguishes you from all of them, and you have used this gift only to cause the greatest evils.

Let us not forget this word of Scripture: The serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that were on the earth. Therefore the Lord said to him, 'You shall be cursed among all the animals and all the beasts of the earth. But as this curse had escaped our senses and our eyes, God wished to inflict upon him a visible punishment which constantly reminded us of his crime and his punishment. So he adds: You will crawl on your stomach, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. You have abused your natural qualities, and you have dared to enter into conversation with the reasonable man I had created: you have thus imitated the demon, to which you have served as a compliant minister, and who has been expelled from heaven, because he affected thoughts above his condition. And in the same way I inflict upon you a punishment that will change your nature. You will crawl on the earth, and you will feed (101) dust. So, you will never be able to rise to the sky, rush you will always remain in this state of humiliation, and only of all the animals, you will feed you of the dust. More: I will put enmity between you and the woman; between your posterity and his. For little pleased to see you crawling on the earth, I will make woman your irreconcilable enemy, so that war will always subsist between your posterity and his. At last she will crush your head, and you will insidiously wound her in the heel. Yes, I will give him the strength to walk on your head, and you will shake in vain under his feet.

This punishment of the serpent manifests to us, my dear brother, the great goodness of the Lord with regard to man. But what Scripture says here about the material serpent can, above all, and in a true sense, be understood as the spiritual serpent, and apply to the devil. And indeed, to humble this superb spirit, God compels him to crawl under our feet, and he gives us the power to walk on his head. Is not this what these words of Jesus Christ mean: Flee with snakes and scorpions? And lest we hear them of a material serpent, he adds: And all the power of the enemy. (Luke, X, 19.)

Therefore. the ineffable goodness of the Lord breaks forth in the punishment he inflicts on the serpent, accomplice and organ of the devil. But back to the woman, please. The serpent was punished first, because he was the instigator of sin: and now the woman who has been seduced, and who has dragged the man, will hear before him his sentence, and this terrible warning: And the Lord said to the woman, I will multiply your calamities and your groans: you will give birth to sorrow; you will be under the power of your husband, and he will dominate you. (Gen. IX, 16.) Admire here again the goodness of the Lord, and see with what indulgence he treats the woman, even after such a great crime. I will multiply, he tells him, your calamities. I destined you in the beginning for an existence which would have been free from pain and affliction, and which, freed from all sorrow and all sadness, would have known only joy and pleasure. Clothed in a mortal body, you would have felt none of her sad necessities; but because you have not known how to make use of these precious favors, and because the excess of happiness has made you ungrateful, I will impose on you a restraint which will keep you in duty, and I condemn you henceforth to tears and to moans.

I will multiply your calamities and your groans, and you will give birth in pain. The joy you feel in becoming a mother will begin with pain; and this pain, which will be renewed at each birth, will constantly remind you of the scorn of your fault and your disobedience. But lest the following years weaken the memory, and so that you do not forget that this is the punishment of your sin, I will multiply your calamities and your groans, and you will give birth in pain.

8. This sentence was like a prophecy of the sufferings and evils to which the woman is subjected: a nine-month pregnancy, painful and laborious, and intolerable pains that must have been felt to understand them. However, the Lord, always good and merciful, wanted to soften for the woman these cruel sorrows by the joys of motherhood. Thus she forgets, at the birth of a son, all the pains that preceded and accompanied this birth. So we see that the woman, in the very midst of the unheard-of sufferings that put her life in danger, has not become a mother, that she blossoms with joy, and that, forgetting all her anxieties, she does not think to breastfeed his child. Let us recognize in this a beneficent disposition of the Lord, which provides for the preservation of the human race. Because always the hope of a good future makes lighter the present evils. It is thus that the merchants cross the immensity of the seas, face the storms and the pirates; and when, escaping from a thousand dangers, they see all their hopes vanish, they nevertheless do not fail to undertake a new navigation. Thus again, the plowman deeply digs his field, cultivates it carefully, and gives him an abundant seed; and too often the drought, or the rain, and even the rust and the mildew, perish his harvest as he goes to gather them; however, he is not put off, and begins his work again as soon as the season permits.

This observation applies to all kinds of industry, and is equally true in women. For nine months she endured intolerable pain, sleepless nights and horrible tortures; sometimes (102) following an accident, she gave birth prematurely, and gave birth to a formless fetus, or she gave birth to a crippled, idiotic or stillborn child; and scarcely has she escaped these grave dangers, forgotten all her evils, and exposed again to the perils of motherhood. What did I say ! she even faces even greater ones, for it is not uncommon to see mothers dying as a result of childbirth; and yet these examples do not frighten other women, nor turn them away from marriage, so much has the Lord mixed their sorrows of joy and contentment! This is why he said to Eve: I will multiply your calamities and your groans; and you will give birth in pain. It was to this word that Jesus Christ referred when he compared the excess of the tribulations of the mother with the fullness of her joys. When a woman, says he, gives birth, she is in sorrow, because the hour has come. This is the pain; and then he adds, to show us that this pain passes, and that joy and gladness follow him: But after she has borne a son, she no longer remembers her affliction, because of her joy, because that a man is born in the world. (John, XVI, 21.)

Do you see, then, how the goodness of the Lord and his providence are manifested to us, and as this saying: You will give birth in sorrow, is for the woman a punishment and a severe warning. God adds, You will be under the power of your husband, and he will dominate you. Does not it seem that here God is seeking to apologize? and it is as if he were saying to the woman: In principle I had assigned you the same rank of honor and glory as to man; I had communicated to you all the privileges, and I had given you the empire of the universe; but since you have abused your dignity, I submit to you. You will be under the power of your husband, and he will dominate you. You have forsaken Him whose glory and nature you shared, and for whom you were formed, in order to bind relations with the serpent, and to receive through him the perfidious advice of the devil: well! I submit to you, and I appoint your master. you will recognize his authority, and because you have not been able to command, you will learn to obey. So you will be under the power of your husband, and he will dominate you. For it is better for you to submit to him and to recognize his authority than to live free from all yoke and exposed to hurl yourself into evil. Thus it is more useful for the horse to obey the brake, and to walk with a sure and regulated step, than to launch here and there an adventurous and disorderly course. So I submit to the man for your own benefit, and I want you to obey him without constraint, as in the body the limbs obey the head.

9. But I realize that the length of this speech tires you; and yet I ask you a few more moments of attention. For it would be indecent to withdraw when the judge is still sitting on his court, and not to hear the whole statement of judgment. In the end we touch at the end. Let us listen then to the sentence that God, after speaking to the woman, pronounced to the man, and the punishment which he inflicted on him. And God said to Adam, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten the only fruit which I commanded you not to eat, the earth is cursed in your work; and you will only eat fruit, all the days of your life, with a lot of work. It will only produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will feed on the grass of the earth. You will eat your bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the land from which you were drawn; for you are dust and you will return to dust. (Gen. VII, 17, 18, 19.)

These words contain many traits of kindness and providence towards us: but to appreciate them properly, it is necessary to deepen each word. And God said to Adam, You have heard the voice of your wife, and have eaten the only fruit of which I commanded you not to eat; so, listening to his voice and eating this fruit, you preferred his insinuations to my command, and you did not want to abstain from the only fruit of which I had ordered not to eat, for my defense was but you have not respected it, and you have broken my orders to obey your wife; so you will know all the enormity of your fault.

Listen, O men! Listen, O women! that they do not suffer from similar insinuations, and that they do not allow themselves to do so! For if Adam could not justify himself by rejecting his sin against woman, it would be of little use to a husband to say: I have committed this fault out of complaisance for my wife. The woman (103) was placed under the power of man, and the master was made to obey it. Feet should not control the head. And yet we too often see that whoever by his rank should be the head, lowers himself to become the feet, and that which should be the feet, attributes to himself the functions of the head. It is this confusion which the great Apostle, the Doctor of the nations, foresaw when he exclaimed: "Woman, do you know if you will save your husband? and you, husband, do you know if you will save your wife? (1 Corinthians 7:15.) However, it is up to man to reject all bad counsel that the woman would allow herself to give him; and this one must never forget the punishment of which Eve was punished for having suggested to Adam this fatal disobedience. She must still, far from imitating Eve, and reproduce her criminal insinuations, learn her misery, and never give her husband any advice which would not be salutary and useful to both. But back to our subject.

But God said to Adam, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten the only fruit of which I commanded you not to eat; because you neglected to keep my commandment, and neither the fear nor the threats of the chastisements that followed your sin could hold you back, and because you made the enormous mistake of touching the only fruit that I had excepted, by abandoning you the use of all the others, the earth is cursed in your work. Here we recognize the divine goodness in the different way in which he punishes the serpent, an unreasonable animal, and man, to be endowed with reason. He said to the first, You are cursed on the earth; and the second: the earth is cursed in your work. And rightly so: for it was created for man, that he might enjoy his productions. But because man has sinned, she is cursed; and the effect of this curse will be to disturb the rest and the tranquility of the man.

So, says the Lord, the earth is cursed in your work; and to teach us the effects of this curse, he adds: and you will only eat fruit, during all the days of your life, with a great work. Do you not see this chastisement go through all ages, and after having been useful to the first man, still learn from his descendants what is the origin of their misfortunes? But let us listen to the following words which better specify the kind of this curse, and the cause of this painful work. And God says, the earth will produce you thorns and thistles only. These will be like the monuments of my curse; and you will not make the earth fruitful except through care and toil. So all your life will flow in sadness and work, so that they will be a brake that represses the arrogance of your pride, and brings you back to the thought of your nothingness; you will no longer be tempted to rock yourself with guilty illusions, for you will feed on the grass of the earth, and you will eat bread from the sweat of your brow.

But before explaining these words, let us observe how the sin of man has changed for him all the first conditions of life. For it is as if God were saying to him: I had prepared for you, creating you, a life free from pain, work, fatigue and worry. You would have enjoyed perfect happiness, and without knowing any of the sad subjugations of the body, you would have fully tasted all the delights of life. But you did not know how to appreciate this happy state, and here I curse the earth. From now on, if you do not sow it and if you do not cultivate it, it will not give you, as before, its various productions; I will even join these labors, and these painful labors, with diseases and continual fatigues, so that you will not succeed in anything except at the price of your sweats, and so this hard existence will be a constant lesson of humility. , and a memory of your nothingness.

In addition, this curse will not be limited to a few years, but it will extend throughout the course of your life; and you will eat your bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the earth from which you were drawn, for you are dust, and you will return to dust. Yes, that will be your destiny, until the end of your days, and until you return to the earth from which you were fired. For it is from the mud of the earth that the body that I gave you in my goodness was formed, and it is in this same mud that it will be solved. You are dust, and you will return to dust. In vain to make you avoid all these evils, I said: Do not eat this fruit, and the day you eat it, you will certainly die; I did not want your death, and I did not neglect anything I could do. (104) But you have thrown yourself into this abyss of evil, and you must only accuse your own negligence.

Here is a question that I will solve in a few words, and that will end this interview. God says to our first parents: The day you eat forbidden fruit, you will certainly die. But it is unmistakable that after their sin and their disobedience, they lived a great many years. This difficulty is only one for those who read the scripture superficially; for an attentive reader explains it easily, and easily discovers the meaning of this passage. Doubtless Adam and Eve lived many years, and yet the day they heard this saying: You are earth, and you will return to the earth, a sentence of death was pronounced to them, so that it can be said that from that moment moment they died. Thus the meaning of this passage: The day when you will eat fruit, forbidden, you will certainly die, is that from that moment they know that they were subject to death. Hey! do not we see that in the courts the convicted murderer is sent back to prison, and that he stays there long enough? However, it is already regarded as dead, because a capital punishment has been rendered against him. And since the day when the Lord pronounced a death sentence against our first parents, they were subject to this judgment, although the execution was postponed for many years.

This conversation has extended beyond ordinary limits; but since I was able, by the grace of God, and according to my strength, to finish the explanation of the passage of Genesis which had been read, I immediately conclude. Doubtless it would be easy to further develop this subject, and to show that divine mercy floats above those floods of death that overwhelm all men. However, I will say nothing of it so as not to tire your memory too much, and I beg you. only when you leave this assembly, do not go to tasteless meetings, nor amuse yourself with frivolous conversations. The subject of an interesting interview would be to summarize in oneself, or to recite to one another the principal points of this instruction: the questions of the supreme sledge, and the answers of the guilty; the justification of Adam, who rejects his fault on the woman, and the excuse of her who accuses the serpent; the punishment of this animal, and its eternal punishment, a punishment which testifies the anger of the Lord against him, and his merciful kindness to those whom he has seduced. And indeed, since God punishes the seducer so severely, it is a proof that Adam and Eve, victims of his deceits, were agreeable to him, and that he was still interested in their happiness. Then remember the sentence pronounced on the woman, the punishment, and the severe warning she received, and finally remember this judgment pronounced to Adam: You are earth, and you will return to the earth.

These various reflections will make you admire more and more the ineffable mercy of the Lord. For though we are only dust, and we must return to dust, we can, by the practice of virtue and the escape of vice, obtain the ineffable goods which he has prepared for those who love him, and of whom he It is written: The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not understood. (I Corinthians II, 9) It is therefore right that we offer to the Lord eternal thanksgiving for so many benefits, and that fools never lose their memory. We must also apply, by the exercise of good works, and by the constant flight of sin, to calm his anger, and to make us propitious. Hey! would it not be a monstrous ingratitude if we were to forget that God, immortal and impassive by nature, did not disdain, to deliver us from death, to take our mortal and earthly flesh, to elevate it to the highest high heaven, to make her sit at the right hand of her Father, and to assure him the adoration of the angels? But we, alas! we hold a very opposite course; we bury in the flesh and mud our immortal soul, we subject it to the earth and to death, and we make it incapable, to do nothing for heaven and eternal life. Ah! I implore you, do not show us ungrateful so far to such a benefactor; and, on the contrary, be obedient to his precepts, and eager to do all that is pleasing to him, that he may render us worthy of celestial felicity. Let us all fetch them, by the grace and kindness of J.-CN-S., ​​To whom be, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glory, honor and empire now and forever, and for ever and ever! So be it.