Meditation for Wednesday

Thou shalt this day think upon death, which, for the attainment of true wisdom and for the avoidance of sin, is one of the most helpful considerations possible. It aids one, too, in a timely beginning, to prepare for the day of account.

Think, first, then, how uncertain is the coming of that hour in which death is to surprise thee; for thou knowest neither the day, nor the place, nor the condition in which it will take thee. Only thou knowest thou must die; all else is uncertain, save that the hour most often comes when man is least prepared and mindful of it.

ink, secondly, of the separation which must then take place from all those things which we love in this life ; and especially of the separation of the soul from the body, its companion of old, and so much loved! If we think banishment from our country, and the air which we first breathed, so great a calamity, even if, when banished, we might take with us all we love; how much worse will be the entire banishment from all household things, from property, friends, father, mother, children, the very light and air we are accustomed to, and all things else !

If the ox when separated from his companion in the plough, sends forth bellowings, what will be the lamentation of thy heart, when they separate thee from all those together with whom thou didst bear the yoke of this life’s burdens ?

Consider the anxious concern of man as to what awaits the body and the soul after death ; how ‘that for his body there is nothing else awaiting than a hole in the ground seven feet long, in company with other dead bodies, and that for his soul he cannot know for certain what is to be its lot. This is one of the greatest anxieties we can have to bear; to know that there ‘is to be for ever, glory or punishment ;

that we are so near to one or the other, and yet do not know into which of these two lots, so widely different, we haye to fall.

Besides this consideration there is another no less serious, namely, the account then to be rendered ; a consideration which may make even the stoutest-hearted to tremble.

It is said of Arsenius, that when he was about to die, he began to tremble. And when his disciples said to him, “ Father, dost even thou fear ?” he answered, “ My children, this fear is no new thing to me ; it has been ever present with me.”

It must needs be so. For then there will be present before the man, like a squadron of enemies come to overthrow him, all the sins of his past life ; and those sins in which he once had most pleasure, will be the sins most vividly before. him, and will cause him the most fear. Oh!

how bitter, then, the memory of past delight which was once so sweet. Well doth the Wise Man say, “ Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright; at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” These are the intoxications of that poisonous draught which the enemy presents to us; this is the effect of that Cup of Babylon, so fair-gilded without !

The wicked man, then seeing himself surrounded by so many accusers, begins to fear the sentence of this judgment, and to say within himself, “ Miserable man that I am who have lived in such deception, have walked in such paths, what shall become of me now in this judgment?” If, as S. Paul saith, “ Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap,” what shall I, who have sown nothing but works of the flesh, reap save corruption ? - If S. John saith, that in that heavenly city which is all pure gold, nothing shall enter in which defileth, what can one look for who has lived so foully and shamefully ?

Then, after this, come the Sacraments of Confession, Communion, and Extreme Unction, the last succours with which the Church can aid us in that distress ; and, at this point as at others, thou hast to think what anguish and distress the man will then suffer who has lived a bad life ; how then he will wish that he had taken another path; what a different life he would then live, if only time for it were given him ; and how then he would strive to call upon God—when the pains and grip of infirmity would give no longer place forit!

' Think, too, of those last incidents of infirmity, which are as messengers of death, " how terrible they are, and what motives to fear ; the heaving chest, the fainting voice, «the feet and limbs being numbed, the nostrils and eyes sinking, the paling face, and the tongue no longer able to perform its office ; and then, last of all, the senses lose their capacities as the soul goes forth. But above all, it is the soul which then will suffer most, partly in its dissolution account to be then rendered.

‘And when the soul is parted from the body, there yet remain two journeys to make, the one of the body being borne to its burying-place; and the other, the c 4 soul's going forth to the lot determined for it. When the body has been left in its burying-place, accompany in thought the soul, and see it on its way to its new country in which it is to appear finally for — judgment. Imagine thyself present at this trial, and the whole Court of Heaven waiting for the carrying out of its sentence ! Then shall be required the account for the use of life, of goods, of God's inspirations, — of opportunities, of means given for true — life, and above all, of the redeeming Blood — of Christ! and then shall each one be judged according to the account rendered by him.