And this will be the chief woe of the damned—that Jesus is irrevocably lost to them. For if He were in hell, it would be no hell, as Heaven without Him would be no Heaven, as the Royal Psalmist exclaims: _Whom have I in Heaven but Thee?_ To be with Jesus, is to be in Paradise, as the poor thief learned, when he was assured that he should be with Jesus, and therefore be in Paradise: _To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise_. To be away from Jesus is to be in hell. Wherefore the sentence of the Judge is: _Depart from Me, ye cursed_. To be separated from Jesus, and that for ever; ah! that is _the_ malediction of all, that a hell deeper than hell itself. But how is it that we esteem this loss at so small a price? that we lose Jesus knowingly, wilfully, for a momentary pleasure, for a point of honour, for a nothing at all; and having lost Him, seek Him not sorrowing? Our own gross ignorance is the cause, readily consenting to sin, and so losing us the dear presence of Jesus. * * * * * 2. How great this loss is, and how great a grief arises from this loss, those who have experienced the loss know. Mary Magdalene saw her beloved Jesus fall seven times beneath the great weight of the cross, she beheld Him hang for three hours upon the cross, she saw Him taken down from the tree and laid in a sepulchre, and yet not one Evangelist says that she shed a single tear. But on the most festive day of the Resurrection, when the angels sang their paschal hallelujah in full choir, when mourning was laid aside for garments white and clean, when the dead themselves rose for joy from their graves, and the dawn blushed a fairer pink than heretofore, and the sun, rejoicing _as a giant to run his course_, scattered brighter than wonted beams, THEN Magdalene wept inconsolably, nor deigned to look at the angels who asked, _Woman, why weepest thou? for_, says the Evangelist, she had _bowed down_ her face to the earth, as though beaten down and crushed beneath the burden of her sorrow. But why this strange paradox! that she should not weep at the time for tears, and now not laugh at the time for laughter? Magdalene’s answer explains all: _They have taken away my Lord_. This was her sole and worthy cause of tears—the absence of her Lord. “She wept more,” says Augustine, “because He was removed from the sepulchre, than because He was slain upon the tree.” When He was on the cross, she stood by; when He was entombed, she sat over against the sepulchre; dying she was near Him, risen she was parted from Him—therefore flowed her tears. Truly may St. Bernard say: “So sweet is Jesus to all who taste of Him, so beautiful to all who behold Him, so dear to all who embrace Him, that a little moment of absence is greatest cause of sorrow.” But oh! what will it then be, to lose Him for ever and ever!