Consideration II - WITH DEATH EVERYTHING ENDS

"Finis venit, venit finis" (Ezek. 2:7).

Point I

By worldly people, only those are considered fortunate who enjoy the goods of this world — pleasures, riches, and pomp; but death will put an end to all these earthly fortunes. "Quae est vita vestra? vapor est, ad modicum parens" (James 4:15). The vapors that rise from the earth, sometimes lifted into the air and struck by sunlight, make a fine display; but how long does this display last? At a little wind, everything vanishes. Behold that great man, today attended, feared, and almost worshipped; tomorrow, when he is dead, he will be despised, cursed, and trampled upon. With death, everything must be left behind. The brother of that great servant of God Thomas a Kempis prided himself on having built a beautiful house, but a friend told him there was a great defect in it. "What?" he asked. The defect, the friend replied, is that you have made a door in it. "What?" he said, "is the door a defect?" "Yes," the friend answered, "because one day through this door you will have to go out dead, and so leave the house and everything."

Death, in short, strips man of all the goods of this world. What a spectacle it is to see that prince driven out from his palace never to return, and another take possession of his furniture, his money, and all his other goods! The servants leave him in the tomb, barely covered with a garment sufficient to cover his flesh; there is no one left to esteem him, no one to flatter him; nor is any account made of the orders he left behind. Saladin, who conquered many kingdoms in Asia, left word at his death that when his body was being carried to burial, someone should go before it with his shirt hung on a pole, crying out: This is all that Saladin takes with him to the grave.

Once the corpse of that prince is placed in the pit, the flesh falls away, and behold, his skeleton can no longer be distinguished from the rest. "Contemplare sepulcra," says St. Basil, "vide num poteris discernere, quis servus, quis dominus fuerit." Diogenes was one day seen by Alexander the Great busily searching for something among certain skulls of the dead. "What are you looking for?" asked Alexander curiously. "I am looking," he replied, "for the skull of your father King Philip, and I cannot distinguish it; if you can find it, show it to me: Si tu potes, ostende."

In this world men are born unequal, but after death all are found equal: "Impares nascimur, pares morimur," says Seneca. And Horace said that death levels scepters with hoes: "Sceptra ligonibus aequat." In short, when death comes — "finis venit" — everything ends and everything is left behind, and of all the things of this world nothing is carried to the grave.

Affections and Prayers

My Lord, since You give me light to understand that everything the world esteems is all smoke and folly, give me strength to detach myself from it before death detaches me. How wretched I have been! How many times for the miserable pleasures and goods of this earth have I offended and lost You, the infinite Good! O my Jesus, O heavenly Physician, turn Your eyes upon my poor soul; see the many wounds I have inflicted upon myself by my sins, and have pity on me. "Si vis, potes me mundare." I know that You can and will heal me, but to heal me You require that I repent of the injuries I have done You; yes, I repent of them with all my heart. Heal me then, now that You can heal me. "Sana animam meam, quia peccavi tibi" (Ps. 40:5). I had forgotten You, but You have not forgotten me; and now You make me understand that You wish even to forget the offenses I have committed against You, if I detest them: "Si autem impius egerit poenitentiam, omnium iniquitatum eius non recordabor" (Ezek. 18:21). Behold, I detest them and hate them above every evil; forget then, my Redeemer, all the bitterness I have caused You. For the future I am resolved to lose everything, even my life, rather than Your grace. And what good are all the goods of the earth to me without Your grace?

Help me, for You know how weak I am. Hell will not cease to tempt me; already it prepares a thousand assaults to make me its slave again. No, my Jesus, do not abandon me. From this day forward I wish to be the slave of Your love. You are my only Lord. You created me, You redeemed me, You are the one who above all others has loved me: You are the one who alone deserves to be loved; You alone I wish to love.

Point II

Philip II, King of Spain, when close to death, called his son, and throwing back the royal robe that covered him, showed him his breast eaten by worms, and then said to him: Prince, see how one dies, and how all the grandeurs of this world end! Well did Theodoret say: "Nec divitias mors metuit, nec satellites, nec purpuram"; and that from subjects and princes alike, "putredo sequitur, et sanies defluit." So that everyone who dies, though he be a prince, takes nothing with him to the grave; all the glory remains on the bed where he breathes his last. "Cum interierit, non sumet omnia, neque descendet cum eo gloria eius" (Ps. 48:18).

St. Antoninus relates that when Alexander the Great died, a certain philosopher exclaimed: "Behold, he who yesterday trampled the earth is now oppressed by the earth. Yesterday all the earth was not enough for him; today seven spans suffice him. Yesterday he led armies across the earth; today he is carried by a few porters beneath the earth." But let us rather hear what God says: "Quid superbis, terra et cinis?" (Sirach 10:9). Man, do you not see that you are dust and ashes? Why do you grow proud? Why do you spend your thoughts and your years to make yourself great in this world? Death will come, and then all your greatness and all your designs will end: "In illa die peribunt cogitationes eorum" (Ps. 55:6).

Oh, how much happier was the death of St. Paul the Hermit, who lived sixty years shut up in a cave, than the death of Nero, who lived as emperor in Rome! How much more fortunate the death of St. Felix, a Capuchin lay brother, than the death of Henry VIII, who lived amid royal grandeurs but was an enemy of God! But we must reflect that the Saints, to obtain such a death, left everything — their homeland, their comforts, the hopes the world offered them — and embraced a poor and despised life. They buried themselves alive in this world so as not to be buried dead in hell.

But how can worldly people, living among sins, earthly pleasures, and dangerous occasions, hope for a happy death? God threatens sinners that at death they will seek Him and not find Him: "Quaeretis me, et non invenietis." He says that then it will be a time not of mercy, but of vengeance: "Ego retribuam in tempore" (Deut. 32:35).

Reason itself persuades us of the same thing, since a man of the world will find himself at death weak in mind, darkened and hardened in heart by evil habits; temptations will be stronger; he who in life has almost always yielded and let himself be conquered — how will he resist at death? A more powerful divine grace would then be needed to change his heart; but is God perhaps obliged to give us such a grace? Perhaps that man has merited it by the disordered life he has led? And yet at that moment his eternal fortune or his eternal ruin is at stake. How is it possible that, thinking of this, one who believes the truths of the faith does not leave everything to give himself entirely to God, who will judge us according to our works?

Affections and Prayers

Ah Lord, how many nights have I, wretch that I am, slept in Your disgrace! O God, in what a miserable state my soul then was! It was hated by You, and it deserved Your hatred. I was already condemned to hell; only the execution of the sentence remained. But You, my God, did not cease to follow after me and invite me to pardon. But who assures me that You have pardoned me yet? Must I live, my Jesus, in this fear until You judge me? But the sorrow I feel for having offended You, the desire I have to love You, and above all Your Passion, my beloved Redeemer, give me hope that I am in Your grace. I repent of having offended You, O supreme Good, and I love You above all things. I am resolved to lose everything rather than lose Your grace and Your love. You wish that heart to be glad which seeks You: "Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum" (1 Chron. 16:10).

Lord, I detest all the injuries I have done You; give me courage and confidence; do not reproach me any longer with my ingratitude, since I myself know it and detest it. You have said that You do not wish the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live: "Nolo mortem impii, sed ut convertatur, et vivat" (Ezek. 33:11). Yes, my God, I leave everything and turn to You: I seek You, I desire You, I love You above all things. Give me Your love, and I ask nothing more.

O Mary, You are my hope; obtain for me holy perseverance.

Point III

David called the happiness of the present life a dream of one who awakens: "Velut somnium surgentium" (Ps. 72:20). An author comments: "Somnium, quia sopitis sensibus res magnae apparent, et non sunt, et cito avolant." The goods of this world appear great, but then they are nothing and do not last long, just as a dream lasts but briefly, and then everything vanishes. This thought — that with death everything ends — resolved St. Francis Borgia to give himself entirely to God. It fell to the Saint to accompany to Granada the body of the Empress Isabella: when the coffin was opened, at the horror and the stench everyone fled; but St. Francis, guided by divine light, stopped to contemplate in that corpse the vanity of the world, and looking upon it said: "So then, you are my Empress? You, the one before whom so many nobles knelt in reverence? O Lady Isabella, where has your majesty gone, your beauty?" And so he concluded to himself: "Thus do the grandeurs and crowns of this earth end! From this day forward I wish to serve a Master who can never die." And so from that time he dedicated himself entirely to the love of the Crucified; and then he also made a vow to become a religious if his wife should die — which in fact he later carried out, entering the Society of Jesus.

Well then did a man awakened from the world's illusions write upon a dead man's skull these words: "Cogitanti vilescunt omnia." He who thinks upon death cannot love the earth. And why are there so many unhappy lovers of this world? Because they do not think upon death. "Filii hominum, usquequo gravi corde? ut quid diligitis vanitatem, et quaeritis mendacium?" (Ps. 4:3). Miserable children of Adam, the Holy Spirit warns us, why do you not drive from your heart so many attachments to the earth, which make you love vanity and falsehood? What has happened to your ancestors must happen to you as well; they too lived in this palace of yours, they slept in this very bed, and now they are no more: the same must be for you.

Therefore, my brother, give yourself quickly to God before death comes. "Quodcunque potest facere manus tua, instanter operare" (Eccl. 9:10). What you can do today, do not wait to do tomorrow, because today passes and does not return, and tomorrow death may come, which will not permit you to do anything more. Quickly detach yourself from whatever draws you away, or could draw you away, from God. Let us quickly release our affections from these earthly goods, before death strips them from us by force. "Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur" (Rev. 14:13). Blessed are those who, when they die, are already dead to the attachments of this world! Death is not feared by such persons, but desired and embraced with joy: since it then, instead of separating them from the goods they love, unites them with the supreme Good, who alone is loved by them, and who will make them eternally blessed.

Affections and Prayers

My dear Redeemer, I thank You for having waited for me. What would have become of me if You had let me die when I was far from You?

May Your mercy be forever blessed, and the patience You have had with me for so many years. I thank You for the light and the grace with which You now assist me. Before, I did not love You and cared little about being loved by You. Now I love You with all my heart, and I have no greater sorrow than having so displeased a God so good. This sorrow torments me, but sweet is the torment, since this sorrow gives me confidence that You have already pardoned me.

My sweet Savior, oh, would that I had died a thousand times rather than ever offend You! I fear that in the future I might return to offending You. Ah, let me die the harshest death there is before I should again lose Your grace. For a time I was a slave of hell; but now I am Your servant, O God of my soul. You have said that You love those who love You: "Ego diligentes me diligo." I love You; therefore I am Yours, and You are mine. I may lose You in the future, but this is the grace I ask of You: let me die before I should lose You again. You have granted me so many graces I never sought; I cannot fear that You will not hear me in this grace I now ask You. Do not permit me to lose You again; give me Your love, and I desire nothing more.

Mary, my hope, intercede for me.