Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

SERMON OF THE BISHOP OF BELLET. 343work is done ; you have done enough, you ha^e labouredenough ; come, and receive the reward of your toil.And such was the thought which filled my mind when,having blessed the dying Saint, and prayed with himand for him, I was borne, as it were, on the stream ofhis weeping people,to the foot of the altar. There Itook partin the public prayers;there I heard one ofhis beloved sons, one of our missionaries who lived withhim, ask for the miracle of that revered father s restoration to life and health; and as, in spite of myself, I feltthat I could not join in that petition,I contented myselfwith an act of resignation and union with the will ofGod. What! said I to myself,after he has laboured somuch, shall we ask to keep him with us still? Hedoubtless would say, with St. Martin to his weepingdisciples, Non recuso laborem, I refuse not to labourstill. In his goodness, and moved by our tears, hewould have consented to live on ;but can we have theheart to ask it ? He is wearied out, exhausted utterly ;for a long time past he has seemed to live only by amiracle. Has not God left him to us long enough?We indeed have need of him ;but he has need of repose he has a right to his reward. Let him enter,;then, let him enter at last, into the joy of his Lord.Intra in gaudium Domini tui. And will he be so lost inthe joys of Heaven as to be unable still to think of us, topray for and assist us ? No ;Heaven isverynear toearth, for God unites them both. Courage ! courage !In the bosom of God, where he reposes, the Cure" ofArs is not lost to us. And the first lesson we may learnfrom this tomb, and from the words which are to beengraven upon it, is the knowledge of the great benefitswhich he can still confer upon our souls.