Untitled - Saints' Books

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God
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g6 Material for Sermons. IPART i.
draught that is cold or hot is taken with facility, but
when tepid
it is taken with great difficulty, because it
provokes vomiting. This precisely is what the Lord
has threatened against the tepid soul. / will begin to
vomit thee out of My mouth. In expounding this passage
Menochius says, begins to vomit forth the tepid
man, because the latter as long as he perseveres in his
tepidity creates in Him nausea, until finally at his death
the Lord vomits him entirely, and he is forever separated
from Christ. The tepid are in danger of being vom
ited forth by God, that of is, being abandoned without
hope of remedy.
This is what the Lord means by vom
iting the soul out of his mouth; for all have a great
horror of taking back what they vomit. For just as,"
says Cornelius a Lapide, one refuses to take back what
one has rejected, so God has a horror of the tepid whom
he has vomited forth." How does God begin to vomit
forth the tepid priest
? He ceases to give him any
longer these loving calls (this precisely means to be
vomited forth from the mouth of God), these spiritual
consolations, these good desires. In fine, he shall be de
prived of spiritual unction. The unhappy man will go
to meditation, but shall make it with great tediousness,
dissipation, and unwillingness. Hence he shall by
degrees begin to omit it, and thus shall cease to recom
mend himself to God by petitions for his graces, and
by neglecting to ask the divine graces he shall always
become more poor, and shall go from bad to worse. He
shall say Mass and the Office, but they shall be a source
of demerit rather than of merit. He shall perform all
his functions with difficulty and by force, or without
1 "
Porro tepidus incipit evomi, cum, permanens in tepore suo, Deo
nauseam movere incipit, donee tandem omnino in morte sua evomatur,
et a Christo in seternum separetur."
2 "Vomitus significat Deum exsecrari tepidos, sicut exsecramur icl
quod os evomuit." /;/ Apoc.
iii. 16.