Of Sundry Reasens and Motives for Which We May Lawfully and Holily Desire Death

| Baers we may better and more perfectly conform ourselves to the will of God in death as in life, we will set down here sundry motives and reasons why we may desire death, that out of them we may choose the best. The first reason why one may desire death is to escape the labors and troubles that this life carries with it, for as the Wise Man says: Better is death than a bitter life (Ecclus. xxx. 17). In this manner we see that men of the world often desire death and beg it of God; and this they may do without sin, for, after all, the troubles of this life are so many and so oppressive that it is lawful to desire death to escape them. One of the reasons given by the saints why God allowed so many troubles to befall men, was that we should not be so wedded to the world, nor so much in love with this life, but that we might fix our heart and our love on that other world, where there shall be no weeping nor pain (Apoc. xxi. 4). St. Augustine says that God our Lord in His infinite goodness and mercy has wished that this life should be short and quickly come to an end, because it is laborious; and that the other, which we hope for, should be everlasting, so that the labor should last only for a short time, but the joy and the rest forever. St. Ambrose says this life is so full of evils and hardships that, if God had not given us death as a punishment, we might have begged for it as a mercy and remedy, to put an end to so many evils and hardships. It is true that men of the world often sin by the impatience with which they take their troubles and by the way in which they beg death of God with complaints and outbursts of impatience. But if they asked peacefully and submissively: “Lord, if it please Thee, draw me out of these troubles; enough for me is the time I have already lived,” there would be no sin in that.

In the second place, death may be desired with greater perfection, in order not to see the troubles of the Church and the continual offenses committed against God. So we see that the Prophet Elias desired it. Seeing the persecution of Achab and Jezabel, how they had destroyed the altars and put to death the prophets of God, and that they were seeking for him to do the like to him—on fire with zeal for the honor of God, and seeing that he could not mend matters, he went into the deserts and sat down under a tree, and desired to die, and said: Lord, if it please thee, take me out of this life, that I may not see so many evils and offenses against Thee, for I am no better than my fathers (III Kings xix. 4). And that valiant captain of the people of God, Judas Maccabeus, said: It is better to die than to see so many evils and offenses against God (I Mace. iii. 59); and therewith he encouraged his men to fight.

Of the blessed St. Augustine we read in his Life that, when the Vandals had passed over from Spain into Africa and were laying waste everything, sparing neither man nor woman, nor clergy nor laity, nor children nor old men, they came to the city of Hippo, where he was bishop, and surrounded it in great numbers. St. Augustine, seeing such great tribulation—churches without clergy, cities without inhabitants, all destroyed—wept bitterly in his old age and, calling together his clergy, said to them: “I have asked the Lord either to deliver us from these dangers, or to give us patience, or to take me out of this life that I may not see so many evils; and the Lord has granted me the third request.” Forthwith he fell sick in the third month of the siege and died of that sickness. And of our blessed Father Ignatius we read in his Life another like example. This is a perfection proper to saints, to feel so keenly the afflictions of the Church and the offenses committed against the majesty of God as to be unable to suffer them, and so desire death, not to see such evil.

There is also another cause and reason, very good and involving great perfection, for desiring and begging death of God, which is to see ourselves free and safe from the danger of offending Him. For certain it is that, while we are in this life, there is no security that we may not possibly fall into mortal sin; and we know that others have fallen who were more advanced than ourselves and had received great gifts of God and were truly holy and very holy. This is one of the things that more particularly strikes fear into the servants of God and makes them desire to go out of this life. To purchase immunity from sin, one may desire even never to have been born and never to have had existence; how much more to die, since sin is a greater evil than non-existence, and it were better not to be at all than to have sinned. Jt were better for that man never to have been born (Matt. xxvi. 24).

St. Ambrose explains to this purpose the saying of Ecclesiastes (iv. 2): And I praised the dead rather than the living, and I judged him happier than either who hath never been born. The dead is preferred to the living because he has now ceased to sin, and he that has never been born is preferred to the dead because he has never been capable of sin. And so it will be a very good practice to elicit often these acts in prayer: “Lord, never permit me to be separated from Thee;” “Lord, if I am ever to offend Thee, take me off straightway before I offend Thee, because I have no will to live except to serve Thee; and if my life is not to be to Thy service, I would have it no longer.” This is a practice very agreeable to God and very profitable to ourselves, since it contains an act.of sorrow and detestation of sin, it contains an act of humility, it contains an act of love of God, it contains a petition one of the most agreeable that we can offer to God. It is related of St. Louis, King of France, that sometimes his holy mother Queen Dofia Blanca (Blanche of Aragon) would say to him: ‘My son, I would rather see you dead before my eyes than in mortal sin.”

And so pleasing to God was this desire and this blessing which she uttered over him, that they say that all his life long he never committed a mortal sin. This desire and petition may work the same effect on you.

And, further, not only for the avoiding of mortal sins, but for the avoiding of venial sins, of which we are full in this life, it is good to desire death. The servant of God should be resolved to die rather than tell a lie, which is a venial sin; and anyone who should die on that score would be a martyr (St. Thomas, 2a 2, q. 124, art. 5,ad 2). But it is certain that, if we live, we are sure to commit many venial sins. Seven times shall the just man fall (Prov. xxiv. 10), that is, many times; and the longer he lives, the oftener will he fall. And not only for the avoidance of venial sins do the servants of God desire now to go out of this life, but to be free from so many faults and imperfections and the many temptations and miseries of our daily experience.

That holy man (Thomas 4 Kempis) says very well: “O Lord, how I suffer when I set my mind to think of heavenly things, and at once a crowd of carnal thoughts rush in upon me! Ah, what a life is this, where tribulations and miseries never fail, where all things are full of snares and enemies! When one tribulation goes, another comes; and even while the former conflict is going on, sundry others supervene unexpectedly. How can a life be loved that is full of so many bitternesses, liable to so many calamities and miseries? How is it even called a life, engendering as it does so many deaths and plagues?” (Imitation iii. 48 and 20). We read of a very holy woman that she used to say that, if she had the choice of anything, she would choose nothing else but death, since by that means the soul is removed from all fear of ever doing anything that could be a hindrance to pure love. And it seems a more perfect thing to desire to quit this life in order to avoid venial sins and faults and imperfections than for the avoidance of mortal sins; since the avoidance of mortal sins may be more for fear of hell and for love of self and of one’s own advancement than for love of God; but to have such a love of God as to desire death in order to avoid venial sins and faults and imperfections, means great purity of intention and is a thing of high perfection.

But someone will say: “It is to make satisfaction for my faults and defects that I desire to live.” To this I say that, if by living longer we always cleared ourselves of the past and did not add new faults, that would be a good pretext; but if you do not clear yourself, but make additions, and the longer you live, the more account you have to render to God, that pretext breaks down. St. Bernard says very well: “Why do we so much desire this life, in which the longer we live, the more we sin?” And St. Jerome: “What difference, think you, is there between him who dies young and him who dies old, except that the old man is more heavily laden with sin than the young man and has a longer account to render to God?” And so St. Bernard comes to a further conclusion herein and uses language in his great humility that we can use with greater truth: “I blush to live because I profit little; I fear to die because I am not prepared. On the whole, however, I prefer to die and commit myself to the mercy of God, because He is bountiful and merciful, than to go on giving scandal to my brethren by my tepid and imperfect life.” This is a good conclusion. And Father Master Avila used to say that whoever found himself but indifferently disposed to good, ought to desire death rather than life, by reason of the danger in which he lives, which all ceases with death. St. Ambrose says: “What is death but the burial of vices and the resurrection of virtues?”

All these reasons and motives form good ground for desiring death, but the most perfect motive was that which St. Paul had, to be with Christ Whom he loved so much. J desire to be loosened and to be with Christ (Phil. i. 23).

What sayest thou, St. Paul? Why dost thou desire to be loosened from the body? Is it haply to escape sufferings? No, certainly not; for rather we glory in tribulations (Rom. v. 3); that is my glory. Then what is it for? To avoid sin? Not that either, for I am certain that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God (Rom. viii. 38). He was confirmed in grace and knew that he could not lose it, and so he was not concerned to fear that. Why, then, desirest thou death? To be with Christ. He desired it out of pure love—Because I languish with love (Cant. ii. 5). He was sick with love, and so sighed after his Beloved, and any delay seemed long to come to enjoy His presence. St. Bonaventure puts this for the first and highest degree of love of God of the three which he assigns. The first is to love God above all things in the world, so that we would not commit a mortal sin for any of them, nor break any commandment of God so binding. This is what Christ our Redeemer said to that young man in the Gospel: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments (Matt. xix. LEQ): That applies to all. The second degree of charity is not to be content with keeping the commandments, but go on to the counsels, which is proper to religious, who aim not only at what is good, but what is better and more perfect, according to the saying of St. Paul: Be ye renewed interiorly, to know by experience what is the will of God, good and well-pleasing and perfect (Rom. xii. 2). The third degree of charity, says St. Bonaventure, is when a man is all aglow and on fire with the love of God, so that he feels that he cannot live without Him; and accordingly he desires to see himself free and loose from the prison of this body, to be with Christ. His desire is that this exile may be repealed, and this wall of flesh broken and fall down that stands in his way and hinders his seeing God. Life to such is a matter of patience, or rather of weariness, and death an object of ardent desire.

Of our blessed Father Ignatius we read in his Life that he had the most ardent desire to go out of this prison and bondage of the body. So much did his soul sigh to be with his God that at the thought of death he could not restrain his tears, and his eyes were moistened with pure joy. But it is said in that Life that this ardent desire was not so much for the attainment of the Sovereign Good and the enjoyment of that glorious vision, but rather for seeing the glory and supreme felicity of the most sacred humanity of his Lord, Whom he loved so much; and, as the Royal Prophet said, to see the delight of the Lord (Psalm xxvi. 4). As here on earth a friend is apt to rejoice at the sight of the glory and honor of one whom he loves heart and soul, so did our blessed Father desire to be with Christ, forgetful of his own interest and enjoyment and actuated by pure love. He desired to rejoice and be glad for the glory of Christ, congratulating Him on the same, which is the highest and most perfect act of love that we can make. In this way the memory of death, far from being bitter to us, will afford us much satisfaction and joy. Pass on a little further and consider that a few days hence you shall be in heaven, in that joy which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive it (I Cor. ii. 9), and everything for you shall be converted into joy and gladness. Who would not rejoice at the termination of his exile and the end of his labor! Who would not rejoice at gaining and securing his last end for which he was created! Who would not rejoice at entering into possession of his inheritance, and such an inheritance! Now it is by means of death that we enter into the inheritance of heaven. When the Lord shall send sleep, the sleep of death, to his beloved (Psalm ecxxvi. 2), then shall they awake to the inheritance of the Lord. We cannot enter into the possession of these everlasting good things otherwise than by means of death; and so says the Wise Man: The just hath hope in his death (Prov. xiv. 32), for that is the ladder by means of which we mount up to heaven, and this is our comfort in this land of exile. JI will sing to thee, O Lord, and make it my aim to live a pure life without stain of sin: when wilt thou come to me? (Psalm c. 2). So St. Augustine explains this text: “My thought and desire, O Lord, is to keep myself without stain all my life long, and with that care I will ever go singing, and the burden of my song shali be: When shall this exile, O Lord, be repealed? When wilt Thou come for me? When shall I go, Lord, to Thee?” When shall I come and appear before the face of God? (Psalm xli. 2). When shall I be with Thee, O Lord? Oh, how that hour hangs back! Oh, what gladness and joy for me, when they tell me that it is now nigh! TJ have rejoiced in the thing that is said to me: We will go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall be standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem (Psalm cxxi. 1-2). I imagine myself already standing there in company of the angels and the blessed, rejoicing in Thee, O Lord, for ever and ever.”