CIUDAD to - the Catholic Kingdom!

178 CITY OF GOD
to eternal torments in the company of the demons; and
so her sorrow was in proportion. We are aware, that the
angels and the saints of heaven, who know this mystery
in God, cannot feel sorrow or pain-, because that would
be inappropriate to their happy state. If it would be
compatible with their state of glory, their sorrow would
be in proportion to the loss caused by the eternal per
dition to those, whom they love with perfect charity and
whom they desire to have with them in glory.
174. Hence, the sorrow and pain for the perdition of
souls, which was impossible to them, the blessed Mary
felt in a degree so much the greater as She exceeded
them in wisdom and charity. For She was in the state
of pilgrimage, in which She could feel this pain; She
was endowed with the knowledge of the blessed by which
She understood its cause; for when She enjoyed the
beatific vision, She saw in the essence of God, his love
and infinite goodness for the salvation of men, together
with the sorrow which He would have for the perdition
of souls, if such sorrow were possible. She knew the
horrible character of the demons, their wrath against
men, the terrors of the infernal torments and of the end
less company of the devils and the damned. As the most
holy Mary saw, that these two souls and an almost in
finite number of others in the church were to draw upon
themselves eternal damnation, what a sorrow, what pains
and commiseration were caused in that tender, kind and
loving heart at these evils and many others far beyond
times did She lament
my power of describing? Many
such misfortunes and exclaim : "Is it possible, that any
soul, of its own free will, should ever deprive itself eter
nally of seeing the face of God, and should chose rather
to look upon so many demons in hell?"
175. The secret of the reprobation of these first apos-
More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com