Consideration VI - THE DEATH OF THE SINNER

"Angustia superveniente, pacem requirent, et non erit; conturbatio super conturbationem veniet" (Ezek. 7:25).

Point I

At present sinners drive away the memory and the thought of death, and so they seek to find peace (though they never find it) in the life of sin they lead; but when they find themselves in the anguish of death, about to enter eternity — "Angustia superveniente, pacem requirent, et non erit" — then they cannot escape the torment of their evil conscience. They will seek peace, but what peace can a soul find when it is burdened with sins that bite like so many vipers? What peace, when it thinks of having to appear in a few moments before Jesus Christ the Judge, whose law and friendship it has despised until then? "Conturbatio super conturbationem veniet." The news of death already received, the thought of having to take leave of all the things of the world, the remorse of conscience, the time lost, the time lacking, the rigor of divine judgment, the unhappy eternity that awaits sinners — all these things will compose a dreadful tempest that will confuse the mind and increase despair; and so, confused and despairing, the dying man will pass to the other life.

Abraham, with great merit, hoped in God against human hope, believing in the divine promise: "Contra spem in spem credidit" (Rom. 4:18). But sinners, with great demerit and falsely, to their own ruin, hope not only against hope but even against faith, since they despise even the threats God makes to the obstinate. They fear a bad death, but they do not fear leading a bad life. But who assures them that they will not die suddenly from a stroke, a seizure, a rush of blood? And even if they had time at death to convert, who assures them that they will truly convert? St. Augustine had to struggle twelve years to overcome his evil habits; how can a dying man, who has always lived with a soiled conscience, in the midst of pains, dizziness, and the confusion of death, easily make a true conversion? I say "true," because then it is not enough to say and promise; one must say and promise from the heart. O God, with what terror will the miserable dying man be seized and confounded — he who has been negligent in conscience — seeing himself oppressed by sins and by fears of judgment, of hell, and of eternity! Into what confusion these thoughts will throw him, when he finds his head dizzy, his mind darkened, and himself assailed by the pains of death already near! He will confess, he will promise, he will weep, he will beg God for mercy, but without knowing what he is doing; and in this tempest of agitation, remorse, anguish, and terror he will pass to the other life. "Turbabuntur populi, et pertransibunt" (Job 34:20).

Well does an author say that the prayers, the tears, and the promises of the dying sinner are like the tears and promises of someone who finds himself attacked by his enemy, who holds a dagger at his throat to take his life. Wretched is he who takes to his bed in the disgrace of God and from there passes into eternity!

Affections and Prayers

O wounds of Jesus, you are my hope. I would despair of pardon for my sins and of my eternal salvation, if I did not behold you, fountains of mercy and grace, through which a God has shed all His blood to wash my soul from so many sins committed. I adore you, then, O holy wounds, and in you I trust. A thousand times I detest and curse those unworthy pleasures for which I displeased my Redeemer and miserably lost His friendship. Looking upon you, then, I lift up my hopes and turn my affections toward you.

My dear Jesus, You deserve that all men should love You, and love You with all their hearts; but I have so greatly offended You and despised Your love, and You notwithstanding have so patiently borne with me, and with such tenderness have invited me to pardon. Ah, my Savior, do not permit me to offend You again and to damn myself. O God, what a torment it would be in hell to see Your blood and so many mercies You have shown me! I love You and wish to love You always. Give me holy perseverance. Detach my heart from every love that is not for You, and establish in me a true desire and resolution to love from this day forward only You, my supreme Good.

O Mary, my Mother, draw me to God, and make me entirely His before I die.

Point II

Not one but many and manifold will be the anguishes of the poor dying sinner. On one side the demons will torment him. At death these dreadful enemies put forth all their strength to cause the loss of that soul about to depart this life, knowing that little time remains for them to win it, and that if they lose it then, they will have lost it forever. "Descendit diabolus ad vos habens iram magnam, sciens quod modicum tempus habet" (Rev. 12:12). And it will not be one devil that tempts then, but innumerable ones attending the dying man to make him perish. "Replebuntur domus eorum draconibus" (Is. 13:21). One will say to him: Do not fear, you will recover. Another will say: And what? You have been deaf to the calls of God for so many years, and now do you think He will show you mercy? Another: How can you now make amends for those injuries done? Those reputations destroyed? Another: Do you not see that your confessions have all been null, without true sorrow, without purpose of amendment? How can you now make them over?

On the other side the dying man will see himself surrounded by his sins. "Virum iniustum mala capient in interitu" (Ps. 139:12). These sins, like so many guards, says St. Bernard, will hold him fast and say to him: "Opera tua sumus, non te deseremus." We are your offspring; we will not leave you; we will accompany you to the other life and present ourselves with you before the eternal Judge. The dying man will then wish to free himself from such enemies, but to free himself he would need to hate them, he would need to convert his heart to God; but the mind is darkened and the heart is hardened. "Cor durum habebit male in novissimo: et qui amat periculum, peribit in illo" (Sirach 3:27).

St. Bernard says that the heart which has been obstinate in evil during life will make its efforts to escape from the state of damnation, but will not succeed in freeing itself, and oppressed by its own malice will end its life in that same state. Having until then loved sin, it has also loved the danger of its own damnation; justly therefore will the Lord permit it to perish in that danger in which it chose to live until death. St. Augustine says that he who is abandoned by sin before he abandons it will hardly detest it at death as he ought, because then whatever he does, he does under compulsion: "Qui prius a peccato relinquitur, quam ipse relinquat, non libere, sed quasi ex necessitate condemnat."

Wretched then is that sinner who is hardened and resists the divine calls! "Cor eius indurabitur quasi lapis, et stringetur quasi malleatoris incus" (Job 41:15). The ungrateful one, instead of surrendering and softening at the voice of God, has hardened himself, as the anvil hardens all the more under the blows of the hammer. In punishment for this, he will be found in the same state at death, even though he is about to pass into eternity. "Cor durum habebit male in novissimo." Sinners, says the Lord, have turned their backs on Me for the love of creatures: "Verterunt ad me tergum, et non faciem, et in tempore afflictionis suae dicent: Surge, et libera nos. Ubi sunt dii tui, quos fecisti tibi? surgant, et liberent te" (Jer. 2:27). The wretches will have recourse to God at death, and God will say to them: Now you have recourse to Me? Call upon the creatures to help you, since they have been your gods. The Lord will speak thus because they will have recourse without a true intention of converting. St. Jerome says that he holds it almost certain, and has learned from experience, that he who has led a bad life to the end will never make a good end: "Hoc teneo, hoc multiplici experientia didici, quod ei non bonus est finis, cui mala semper vita fuit."

Affections and Prayers

My dear Savior, help me; do not abandon me. I see my soul all wounded by sin; my passions do me violence; evil habits oppress me. I throw myself at Your feet; have pity on me and deliver me from so many evils. "In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum." Do not permit a soul that trusts in You to be lost. "Ne tradas bestiis animam confitentem tibi." I repent of having offended You, O infinite Goodness; I have done wrong, I confess it; I wish to amend at any cost; but if You do not help me with Your grace, I am lost. Receive, O my Jesus, this rebel who has outraged You so much. Consider that I have cost You Your blood and Your life. Through the merits, then, of Your Passion and death, receive me into Your arms and give me holy perseverance. I was already lost; You called me; behold, I will resist no longer. I consecrate myself to You; bind me to Your love, and do not permit me to lose You again by again losing Your grace. My Jesus, do not permit it.

My Queen Mary, do not permit it; obtain for me death, and a thousand deaths, rather than that I should again lose the grace of your Son.

Point III

A great thing! God does nothing but threaten sinners with a bad death: "Tunc invocabunt me, et non exaudiam" (Prov. 1:18). "Nunquid Deus exaudiet clamorem eius, cum venerit super eum angustia?" (Job 27:9). "In interitu vestro ridebo, et subsannabo" (Prov. 1:26). ("Ridere Dei est nolle misereri," St. Gregory.) "Mea est ultio, et ego retribuam eis in tempore, ut labatur pes eorum" (Deut. 32:35). And in many other places He threatens the same; and sinners live in peace, as secure as if God had certainly promised them pardon and paradise at death. It is true that at whatever hour the sinner is converted, God has promised to pardon him; but He has not said that the sinner will convert at death. Rather, He has many times declared that he who lives in sin will die in sin: "In peccato vestro moriemini" (John 8:21). "Moriemini in peccatis vestris" (ibid. 24). He has said that he who seeks Him at death will not find Him: "Quaeretis me, et non invenietis" (John 7:34). Therefore we must seek God when He can be found: "Quaerite Dominum, dum inveniri potest" (Is. 55:6). Yes, because there will come a time when He can no longer be found. Poor sinners! Poor blind souls who put off their conversion to the hour of death, when it will no longer be time to convert! "The wicked never learned to do good," says Oleastro, "except when there is no more time for doing good." God wills the salvation of all, but He punishes the obstinate.

If ever some wretch, finding himself in sin, were struck down by a seizure and lay destitute of his senses, what compassion it would cause in all to see him die without the Sacraments and without a sign of repentance! What joy everyone would then have if he were to come to his senses and ask for absolution and make acts of repentance! But is he not mad who, having time to do this, continues to remain in sin? Or who returns to sin and puts himself in danger of being caught by death — at which time perhaps he will repent, and perhaps not? It is frightening to see someone die suddenly, and yet so many voluntarily expose themselves to the danger of dying thus, and dying in sin!

"Pondus et statera iudicia Domini sunt" (Prov. 16:21). We take no account of the graces the Lord gives us; but the Lord indeed takes account and measures them; and when He sees them despised beyond certain limits, He leaves the sinner in his sin, and so lets him die. Wretched is he who puts off penance until death. "Poenitentia, quae ab infirmo petitur, infirma est," says St. Augustine. St. Jerome says that of a hundred thousand sinners who put off their conversion until death, scarcely one at death will be saved: "Vix de centum millibus, quorum mala vita fuit, meretur in morte a Deo indulgentiam unus." St. Vincent Ferrer says that it would be a greater miracle for one of these to be saved than to raise a dead man to life: "Maius miraculum est, quod male viventes faciant bonum finem, quam suscitare mortuos." What sorrow, what repentance can be conceived at death by one who has loved sin until then?

Cardinal Bellarmine relates that having gone to assist a certain dying man and having exhorted him to make an act of contrition, the man answered that he did not know what contrition was. Bellarmine tried to explain it to him, but the sick man said: "Father, I do not understand you; I am not capable of these things." And so he died, "leaving signs of his damnation clearly enough," as Bellarmine wrote. A just punishment, says St. Augustine, of the sinner: that he should forget himself in death who in life forgot God: "Aequissime percutitur peccator, ut moriens obliviscatur sui qui vivens oblitus est Dei."

"Be not deceived," the Apostle meanwhile warns us, "Deus non irridetur: quae enim seminaverit homo, haec et metet; qui seminat in carne sua, de carne et metet corruptionem" (Gal. 6). It would be mocking God to live despising His laws and then reap reward and eternal glory; but "Deus non irridetur." What is sown in this life is reaped in the next. For him who sows forbidden pleasures of the flesh, nothing is reaped but corruption, misery, and eternal death.

My Christian, what is said to others is said to you as well. Tell me: if you already found yourself at the point of death, given up by the doctors, deprived of your senses and reduced to the agony, how much would you beg God to grant you another month, another week of time then, to settle the accounts of your conscience? And God already gives you this time. Thank Him and quickly make amends for the evil done, and take every means to be found in a state of grace when death comes, because then it will no longer be time to make amends.

Affections and Prayers

Ah, my God, and who would have had as much patience with me as You have had? If Your goodness were not infinite, I would despair of pardon. But I deal with a God who died to pardon me and to save me. You command me to hope, and I wish to hope. If my sins frighten me and condemn me, Your merits and Your promises give me courage. You have promised the life of Your grace to him who returns to You: "Revertimini, et vivite" (Ezek. 18:32). You have promised to embrace him who turns to You: "Convertimini ad me, et convertar ad vos" (Zech. 1:3). You have said that You cannot despise him who humbles himself and repents: "Cor contritum, et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies" (Ps. 50).

Here I am, Lord; I return to You, I turn to You; I confess myself worthy of a thousand hells, and I repent of having offended You. I firmly promise You never again to offend You and to love You always. Ah, do not allow me to live any longer ungrateful to such goodness.

Eternal Father, through the merits of the obedience of Jesus Christ, who died to obey You, grant that I may obey Your will until death. I love You, O supreme Good, and for the love I bear You, I wish to obey You in all things. Give me holy perseverance, give me Your love, and I ask nothing more of You.

Mary, my Mother, intercede for me.