Monthly Retreat: Preparing for a Happy Death

“Statutum est hominibus semel mori” (Heb. ix. 27).

All must die—you are included in the decree; consequently the day is to come, and the hour and moment, when you are to pass away out of this temporary state of existence. When will that day, that hour, that moment arrive? You know not. It may be somewhat distant, and it may be at your very door. To him, that thought he had many years yet to live, and said to himself, “take thy rest, eat, drink, and make good cheer,” God made answer, “fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee” (Luke xii. 20), and when the summons comes shall you be prepared for it? Alas! “man knoweth not if he be worthy of love or hatred” (Eccles. ix. 1).

And you are to die but once. What then? Is it not said, and is it not a Divine Oracle, that, “if the tree fall to the south or to the north, there shall it be?” (Eccles. xi. 3).

What greater blessing can we aspire to than a happy death? and what greater calamity have we to dread than a bad death? Our dear Lord's words will stand for ever, as a tittle of them shall never pass away. And He warns us beforehand to be on the watch, saying, “Blessed is that servant, whom when his Lord comes, He shall find so doing;” whereas, the servant, whom his Lord shall find unprepared, “shall have his portion with the hypocrites, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. xxiv. 46, 51). Shall we not, therefore, take our dear Lord's gracious advice, “Watch ye, therefore, for you know not the day nor the hour” (Matt. xxv. 13).

For this purpose it will not surely be too much to set aside a day every month. Say not you cannot spare it. The “Imitation of Christ” would answer, and tell you: “Si te subtraxeris a superfluis locutionibus, et otiosis circuitionibus, necnon a novitatibus et rumoribus audiendis, invenies tempus sufficiens et aptum ad bonis meditationibus insistendum” (Lib i. cap. xx).

A fatal delusion it would be to postpone the great work for your last illness, when your illness in itself will scarcely allow you to occupy yourself about it. How thrilling the warning of the “Imitation”: “Multa bona potes operari, dum sanus es, sed infirmatus, nescio quid poteris!” (Lib. i. cap. xxiii.) If you ever had a serious illness, you had, I am sure, experimental proof of the little, the very little, one can do for eternity in such a state of suffering. Oh, no, our maxim through life should be, “dum tempus habes, congrega tibi divitias immortales” (Ibid.) You preach to others the certainty of death, its uncertainty as to when, and under what circumstances it is to occur, and, that occurring, it is to occur but once; and from these truths you derive the instruction that we should make our whole life a preparation for death. Alas! if the reproach should come home to yourself, “Qui ergo alium doces, teipsum non doces” (Rom. ii. 21).

Therefore put every other business aside, and make the day you reserve for a special preparation for death, the most precious day of the whole month.

Begin the day by a meditation on death—say Mass for the grace of a happy death—receive your Divine Lord as if you were receiving Him for your Viaticum—read during the day the 23rd Chapter of the first Book of the “Imitation of Christ”—think how you stand before God in every particular and detail, recollecting that if you are promised a reward even for the cup of cold water, you are told you must account for every idle word—take your measures for the month to come, as if it were to be the last—commit yourself to God's holy keeping with hope in His mercy and goodness, but with fear and trembling as regards yourself—recommend yourself to the Mother of mercy and her chaste Spouse, Joseph, the patron of a happy death—invoke your Guardian Angel, and Patron Saint, thus acting as the “Imitation” would recommend you, saying, “Fac nunc tibi amicos, venerando Dei Sanctos, et eorum actus imitando, ut cum defeceris, illi te recipiant in aeterna tabernacula.” (Ibid.)