Hunolt Sermons/Volume 9/Sermon 14
FOURTEENTH SERMON.
ON THE COMFORT OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE IN DEATH.
Subject.
First; a good conscience takes away all that death has terrible in itself. Secondly; a good conscience takes away all that it has terrible in its circumstances.—Preached on the feast of the Purification of the B. V. M.
Text.
Nunc dimitti servum tuum, Domine.—Luke ii. 29.
“Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord.”
Introduction.
Remarkable and extraordinary is this canticle of the aged Simeon. How few there are amongst men who through sheer joy wish for death, and sigh and long for it! How many who are terrified at its very name! Even old people have generally some desire to live longer; if, they say, I could only see my children settled, I should willingly die. And when that wish is granted, ah, they exclaim, if I could only live till an heir is born to one of my sons! And when the heir makes his appearance, ah, they wish to finish a law-suit, or a building they have begun, before leaving this world. And if that too is granted them, they are still afraid to leave the world and to enter into a long eternity, because they do not know how things will be with them there. In a word, death is bitter and unwelcome to all. Simeon’s only wish was to see the Redeemer of the world, the promised Messias; when that wish was gratified and he held the Saviour in his arms, he had nothing more to desire, and at once, without fear or anxiety, began to invite death: “Now,” he said, “Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace: because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Now let me die and go to the other world, since I have nothing more to desire in this. He was like one who lights a candle to find a piece of money he has dropped; when the money is found, the candle is blown out. Simeon kept alive the flickering light of his life to find the Messias; he has found Him, and now he wishes the light to be extinguished; “now Thou dost dismiss,” now I am willing to die. But what do I wonder at? What reason had Simeon to fear death? Should he not rather long for it with desire? He was a pious, holy man, as the Gospel says: “This man was just and devout, and the Holy Ghost was in him.” My dear brethren, death is a bitter, dreadful, and fearful thing, but not for pious and just servants of God. The pious man has good cause to rejoice at the thought of death, and to await its approach with exultation; for a good life and conscience take from death all its terrors, as I shall now prove to the consolation of all good Christians.
Plan of Discourse.
A good conscience takes away all that is terrible in death itself, as I shall show in the first part. A good conscience takes away from death all that is terrible in its circumstances; this I shall prove in the second part.
Immaculate Virgin Mary, who through humility didst obey the law of purification, and you, pure spirits of heaven, obtain for us the grace to cleanse our consciences by true repentance, and to avoid all sin in future; so that on the approach of death we may say or think with joyful hearts: “Now Thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord!”
All the terrors of death come from a bad life. If I prove that neither in death itself nor in its circumstances there is anything fearful or terrible, save and except a bad life and the bad conscience it leaves behind it in the dying man, then I shall have made my subject sufficiently clear, that, namely, a good conscience takes away from death all its terrors. Is not that so, my dear brethren? There cannot be a doubt of it. For if I ask a doctor why the pills he gives me are so bitter, and he tells me that the bitterness comes solely from the wormwood in the pills, it follows that if it is taken away the pills will lose their bitter taste. Now see whether I shall not prove what I say.
Otherwise we have no good reason to fear death, as it is not terrible in itself. Shown by a simile. How comes it that we are so afraid of death? Gloomy death! sorrowful death! bitter death! painful death! the most terrible of all terrible things! so we generally represent it in our imaginations whenever we think of it; these are the epithets we apply to it when we speak of it. Hence arises such an aversion to it in the minds of men that most of them cannot hear of it without feeling sadness, fear, and anguish; nay, many purposely avoid sermons in which death is treated of, and the great majority of men try not even to think of it. But when we consider the matter duly, we find that we do death a great wrong when we paint it in such black colors, and apply such opprobrious epithets to it. Our ideas of death are mere fancies; for there is in it nothing more fearful than in life; nay, it is less to be feared, although we give life such sweet names. Does it take much to frighten a child? Let its father only cover his face with a mask, and the child will run off at once crying and screaming to its mother’s lap, as if to hide itself from the horrible spectre. But, you little goose, what are you afraid of? It is only your father; see here, and taking off the mask he gives it to the child. At once there is an end to its fear; the child seeing that the mask is harmless, begins to play with it, to turn it around, and cries if some one tries to take it away. So it is with us, says the wise Seneca; “our fear of death is ridiculous,”[1] for we know not what it is. Let us only remove the black mask that the imagination of men has covered it with, and look at it in the clear light; then we shall see that it has nothing terrible, and must acknowledge that we have been of the number of those of whom David says: “There have they trembled for fear where there was no fear.”[2]
The death of the just is certainly not terrible. What, then, is death? Do you think it perhaps a grisly skeleton such as is generally painted? Not by any means! It is simply the end of life. Now I can find nothing bad or terrible in that. For, either the life that comes to an end has been a good and pious one, or else a wicked, godless one. If it has been good, pious, regulated by the law and will of God, and is found at the end with a good conscience in the grace and friendship of God, truly, no one can then say that its end is evil or terrible. For if we have but a spark of Christian faith left, what more can we desire than such a death? What can we more hope for or rejoice in than such a death, which changes our mortal life into an immortal one, and makes us infallibly sure of our salvation, which was before always a matter of doubt, and brings us without fail to the end for which we are created. Is it then a terrible thing for the traveller to reach the end of his journey, and to arrive in good health and spirits at his father’s house, where he can repose after the fatigue of the road? Is it a terrible thing for the sailor, after having escaped the dangers of the sea, to arrive in port with a richly-laden ship? Is it a terrible thing for the soldier to return in triumph after having conquered the enemy? Oh, truly, that is a joyful ending of the journey, the voyage, the battle! And still more joyful is the ending of a pious life.
As we ourselves acknowledge. Must you not acknowledge this, my dear brethren? Could I bring you more joyful news than if I were now authorized by divine revelation to assure you that you shall end your lives in the state of sanctifying grace? You often see little children dying in their cradles; the father and mother weep for the loss of their child, and it is only natural they should do so; but who will say that such a death is bitter or terrible? Oh, how happy that child is! such are the exclamations of the bystanders, and many of them experience a secret envy in their hearts; oh, they say, I wish I had died in the same state! Is it not so? And why? Is not the child dead? Is not its life ended by death just as if it were a grown person? Not a doubt of it. And why then do not people look on such a death as bitter or terrible? Nay, why are there so many who long for such a termination to their lives? Because, you say, that child died in its first innocence, and is perfectly certain of its eternal salvation, and rejoices with the angels and saints in heaven. From this I conclude that death, or the end of a good life, has nothing bitter or terrible in itself; and, further, if there is anything bitter or terrible in death it comes not from death itself, no matter what its nature maybe, but simply from a wicked and sinful life; hence, not death is to be feared, but a bad life.
Even the death of the wicked is not in itself bad or terrible. Shown by a simile. Death, I say, is not to be feared in itself; for not even the death of the wicked, considered in itself, is terrible or evil. Suppose a thief breaks into your house at night, and succeeds in carrying off some of your things; at last your servant awakes, runs after the thief, and, since he cannot get him into his power otherwise, kills him. What would you think of that servant? Would you call him a wicked murderer? No; he is a faithful servant, who protects his master’s property, and prevents it from being stolen. But the poor thief fared badly enough at the hands of the servant. True; but whose fault was it? The servant’s or the thief’s? The former only did his duty, and in fact could not have saved his life otherwise; while if the thief had kept his hands off other people’s property he would not have suffered as he did. Nay, under the circumstances the thief came off better than he otherwise might have done; for if he had fallen into the hands of justice he would have died a shameful and public death on the gallows.
For it ends a bad life, hinders many sins, and lessens eternal punishment. What is the man, my dear brethren, who leads a wicked, godless life. He is a thief and a robber, who wrongs his neighbor taking away his property unjustly, or lessening his good name by detraction, calumny, or contumely, by cursing, swearing, hatred, revenge, thus depriving him of rest and peace, or by improper conversations, caresses, or allurements, or bad example, thus robbing him of his innocence; he wrongs himself by depriving himself of his health through drunkenness; he robs the Almighty of the honor due to Him; he robs his own soul of grace and merit by impurity and other sins. He has continued in this wickedness for one, two, three, or more years without doing penance; if he goes now and then to confession, no improvement follows, and he continues on in the old way. Now, when God has looked on at all this with patience for a time, death comes like a messenger from the Almighty, and seizes on the guilty man in the midst of his sins, so that, although he might have recovered the grace of God at any moment, he dies in his sins. What is the terrible part of all this? That the man is dead? No; for we must all die. But is death frightful or terrible in itself? By no means! It is rather good and advantageous, because it puts an end to a wicked life, and thus prevents many sins, and moreover it has hindered the sinner, who would not in any case be converted, from adding to his eternal torments in hell.
Therefore it is not death, but a bad life we should fear. But, you say, it is a terrible and bitter thing to die in the state of sin; to leave this world a sworn enemy of God, and immediately after death to fall into the hands of an angry and living God, and to become the object of His vengeance. There is no doubt of this; but what is the cause of it? Not death; for death does not place men in the state of sin, nor make them enemies of God. It is a man’s own sinful life that is to blame. And, again, if he persists in wickedness to the end, that is not death’s fault. Death puts an end to life just as he finds it; if he finds it good, he finishes a good life, otherwise he terminates a bad one. “Death itself,” says St. Ambrose, “is not terrible, but the opinion that each one forms of it according to the state of his conscience; for there is nothing we need fear in death if we have done nothing to make us afraid during life.”[3] What? you exclaim; and must I not fear death when I have committed a grievous sin? Certainly; for there is nothing more dreadful than to die with a bad conscience, in the state of sin; but, answers St. Ambrose, you must blame yourself and your sins for your fear; it is guilt alone that renders death terrible. But if you continue to live as you would not willingly be when dying, then, do not say: how awful it is to die an enemy of God! but rather: how terrible it is to have lived and still to live as an enemy of God! Do not say: how fearful the torments that follow a bad death! but, how fearful the torments that follow a bad life! “Therefore,” concludes the Saint, “let each one accuse the wounds of his own conscience, not the bitterness of death.”[4] The only thing that is bitter or terrible in death is a bad conscience; and hence, O pious Christian! who have a good conscience, you need not fear death, nor expect to find anything ghastly in it. Nor is there anything bitter or terrible in the circumstances of death, except a bad conscience; and that bitterness and terror are taken away by a good conscience, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
Separation from the world is not terrible in itself. Some of the circumstances of death refer to the things that are left behind here, and others to what is coming in the future life; for death is partly a separation from earthly things and partly an entering on a long, unknown eternity. Neither of these classes of circumstances has anything bitter or terrible; or if it has, it comes only from a bad conscience and a bad life led by the dying person. But am I not daring to speak against the generally received opinions and judgments of men in this matter, nay, against our own natural instincts? Is it not a hard and bitter thing for the soul to leave the house which has sheltered it so long; that is, to be forced to quit the body with which it has been intimately connected? Is it not hard for a man to leave house and home, money and wealth, honors and dignities, for which lie worked so long, and to leave them forever? Is it not hard to be separated from father, mother, husband, wife, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances? Is it not hard to look at the dear ones for the last time with glazed eyes, and to bid adieu to the world with a tongue that can hardly articulate any more? I acknowledge, my dear brethren, that when we consider all these things together it is a hard and bitter thing, and one well calculated to inspire fear and sadness. But what is the cause of that? This fear, dread, sadness, springs from our weak faith; from our ignorance regarding the great goods that await us in the next life; from an inordinate attachment that binds our hearts to earth; from stupidity and blindness, that leave us so incapable of appreciating future joys, and make us so fond of this miserable, wretched life. “This is not the fault of death,” says St. Ambrose, “but of our weakness; for we are captivated by the enjoyments of this life, and are afraid to end it, although it has more bitterness than pleasure.”[5]
For our lives are full of misery and wretchedness. Such we shall find to be really the case if we judge the matter, not from mere outward appearances, but according to the dictates of sound reason. For, what is our life on earth? After that irrevocable curse pronounced on all the children of Adam, what else does it bring us but misery and suffering? It is a constant state of imprisonment; a banishment from our fatherland; a hospital for poor sick people; a vale of tears and sorrow, etc. Such are the terms in which the holy doctors, the apostles, and God Himself in the holy Scripture speak of this earth. And we know by daily experience that what they say is true. If we enjoy some small pleasure now and then, are there not a hundred annoyances that spoil that very pleasure and change it into bitterness? How long does laughter last without being disturbed by tears and sighs? Heat and cold, hunger and thirst, toil and labor, countless illnesses and diseases of the body, fear, anguish, disturbance, care and sorrow in the mind, constant dangers and temptations in the soul, treachery and unfaithfulness in friends, misfortunes in temporal affairs, troubles from masters, servants, neighbors, false brethren, one’s own children, ourselves, and a thousand other trials and crosses; it is in these things that human life mostly consists. Go through the wide world, and find me out one of the most fortunate of men who can say with truth, as far as the comfort and pleasure of the body are concerned: I am always well off; I have everything I desire; I want nothing more. You will not find one to say that, unless some faithful servant of God, who in all circumstances and occurrences is satisfied with the divine will and continually rejoices in the Lord; otherwise, I say, you will not find even amongst the most fortunate one who is not unhappy in many respects, and I almost believe in what Seneca says, although he was a heathen: “No one would receive the gift of life if he knew what it is.”[6] His meaning is, that if each one before entering on life could look out from his nothingness into the world and see how things will be with him in life, and how many sour morsels he will have to swallow, “no one would receive the gift of life.”
Hence we should wish for the end of our lives. How comes it, then, that we are so afraid of that which puts an end to such a miserable and wretched life? It is death alone that frees us from this misery; why should we be so frightened at it? “Wo is me!” exclaims David, that great king, in his eagerness to be free from this life; “wo is me, that my sojourn ing is prolonged;…my soul hath been long a sojourner.”[7] Ah, when shall my misery end? O wished-for moment in which I shall go hence and see my God! “My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God?”[8] But we, if the least sign of sickness threatens us with removal from this scene of misery, are more inclined to cry out: Wo is me, that my sojourning is shortened! Ah, must I die so soon? Must I now appear before the face of God? “Arise ye, and depart,” says the Lord to us by the Prophet Micheas, “for there is no rest here for you.”[9] There is a better land of peace for you in eternity. Nevertheless we cannot think of leaving this world, of changing joy for sorrow, time for eternity, without sadness and anxiety.
And we act unreasonably in fearing it. Shown by a simile. How comes that? It is the fault, not of death, I repeat with St. Ambrose, but of our own weakness. We love only what we see before our eyes and perceive with the other senses, no matter how worthless it is. We have only a weak desire for future eternal joys, because we have never seen them, and know but little about them. In this we resemble little children. Ask a small boy for a nut or a toy that he has, and tell him you will leave him a rich legacy for it; the boy will keep fast hold of his nut or plaything, and let you do what you please with your legacy, for he does not yet understand what that is worth. A peasant girl who has been brought up in her father’s cabin, and has seen nothing of the world but the frolicking of the calves and lambs, heard nothing but the piping and whistling of the shepherds, admired nothing more than the verdure of the fields and meadows, would be with difficulty persuaded to go to a palace to live, and only with the utmost reluctance would she suffer herself to be brought away. You may describe to her as well as you can the magnificence and splendor of her future residence; the gorgeous clothes with which she shall be decked out; the costly food and drink that she shall daily enjoy; the numerous lackeys and attendants who shall be there to wait on her; the pleasures she shall find in hunting, in going to balls and theatres; she will listen open-mouthed, but will not know of what you are speaking. Her peasant’s cot and sheep-fold, the red and blue ribbons with which she binds her hair, the songs of the shepherds, her innocent amusements in the fields and gardens, her milk, butter, and cheese, are all dearer to her than the splendor you have described. Why? Because the simple maiden does not know what that splendor is.
We should rather rejoice when death comes. My dear brethren, where is our faith? our hope? our love of God? Nay, where is our reason, if we are so frightened at the idea of leaving this world by death? How can a workman be troubled when the time comes for him to receive his wages? Whaf conqueror can be sad when the day of his triumph arrives? What traveller can be sorry when he is on the point of returning to his fatherland? He who dies in the state of sanctifying grace goes to receive his reward, to be crowned with the laurel of victory; he is about to enter into that land to which alone he has been journeying; he loses a life, and receives a better one; he leaves a house to win a kingdom; he quits a transitory joy for eternal happiness. And we are afraid of this! Where is our common sense? I ask again. Our reason inspires us with a vehement desire for happiness; our experience teaches us that we cannot have true and lasting happiness in this world; our faith assures us that we can find it only in heaven. Here we live far more miserably than in a poor peasant’s cot, if we compare our present state with heaven. Heaven is our true country, for which we are created; our departed brothers and sisters await us there to share in their eternal joys, and they are saints of God. The God of all happiness is our Father, and from the throne of His glory He calls out to us and invites us to His eternal kingdom to share in His own everlasting happiness. Should we not be rejoiced at this, and sigh and long for it with earnest desires? Now reason as well as faith teaches us that we cannot arrive at this desirable consummation, that we cannot possess God in His kingdom of joys, unless after death. “Man shall not see Me and live,”[10] said God to Moses; no one can enjoy the beatific vision as long as he lives on earth. Why then do we not long for and desire death? Nay, why do we shudder at the thought of it, as if it were the worst and most cruel monster on the face of the earth? How inconsistent our wishes and opinions in this matter! We desire eternal happiness, and are at the same time afraid to tread the only path that can bring us to it. Our daily prayer is: “Thy kingdom come,” and yet we banish from our thoughts the only thing that can open to us the door of the kingdom. Either let us renounce our faith or else moderate our fears; either cease to long for heaven or to fear death which can fulfil our longing and bring us to heaven.
The entrance into eternity is not in itself terrible, but joyful for a good conscience. Yes, you say, if I only knew that death would be for me the entrance into heaven, I should be most willing to leave this earth, where I am not so very well off; I should joyfully welcome death; but who shall assure me of that? How many there are whom death sends from temporal misery into eternal suffering! And that is the very thing I fear most of all; that is what makes me tremble; for on my last moment depends a twofold eternity of happiness or misery, and I know not which shall fall to my lot. Is that all? Have you nothing else to be afraid of? Then I shall not have much trouble with you; your fear helps me to prove my proposition that there is nothing in death itself or its circumstances that is terrible, except a bad conscience. You acknowledge, then, that you would rejoice at the arrival of death if you were sure of going to heaven? Now if you doubt of that, why do you doubt? Have you lived hitherto according to the Christian law without committing any grievous sin? Or even if your sins have been countless, have you repented of and confessed them as well as you could? And if your conscience does not now reproach you with any mortal sin, a testimony, as I have shown elsewhere, that is humanly speaking infallible as to your being in the state of grace, how can you doubt about going to heaven if you die with such a conscience? Where are your hope and faith in God? Can He become a liar, a traitor? Can He break His promise? Has He not pledged His infallible word that heaven is opened to all who die in the state of sanctifying grace? If you end a pious life by death, your salvation is as certain as that God is in heaven. Therefore if you have nothing else to object, give up that fear and rejoice at the thought of death.
It is only a bad conscience that makes this entrance terrible. But if you have lived a wicked life, in the state of sin; if after due consideration your conscience warns you that you have a mortal sin on your soul, or if you are minded to commit one; then indeed you have good reason to doubt as to the nature of your death. Fear! Fear and tremble lest it should be for you the beginning of an unhappy eternity! “You may now see clearly,” says St. Chrysostom, “that it is this one thing alone, a bad conscience, that makes the circumstances of death bitter.”[11] And hence I repeat that the conclusion is inevitable: death in itself is not terrible, nor is the separation from the world fearful, nor is the entry into eternity a cause of terror. O accursed sin and sinful conscience! you and you alone are the bitter wormwood, the intolerable, infernal poison that makes death so terrible and so grisly!
Exhortation to sinners to amend. Truly it is a bitter and terrible thing to die in sin! to die at enmity with God! to die with a conscience which cries out to the poor soul: you are a child of destruction! to die without comfort from creatures, who have to be abandoned with all worldly joys and goods forever! to die without mercy from God, who awaits the departing soul to pronounce on it the sentence of His wrath! to die without receiving help from Mary our Mother, in whose intercession the impenitent sinner has no share! to die without help from the angels, who now abandon the soul! to die without pity from the saints, who accuse it before the judgment-seat of God! to die in the clutches of demons, who drag the soul away with them! to die without any claim to heaven, which there is no hope of ever seeing! to die and at once to go down to hell and burn there forever! O sinner! are you afraid of such a death? Ah, good reason you have to fear it! And why do you not change your wicked life, which is the only thing that can cause you to die such a death? It is a wonderful thing, exclaims St. Augustine; “you fear to die a bad death, but not to live a bad life.”[12] Let this fear of death at least impel you to repent of your sins and to amend your evil ways. And let this fear be always your companion, especially during this season of Shrove-tide, that it may restrain you within the bounds of the divine law, and that you may do nothing against your conscience.
Consolation for the just and conclusion always to keep the conscience pure. But for you, pious Christians, I have no message but the joyful one of the Apostle: “That you be not sorrowful, even as others, who have no hope.”[13] Rejoice in and on account of your pious lives, which take all the bitterness out of death and convert it into sweetness. Rejoice in Lent as well as in Shrove-tide. Rejoice in the Lord whom you serve, whom you love with your whole hearts, and who loves you! Rejoice in your good conscience, which gives testimony that you are children of God! Rejoice in death too, for it will put an end to all your trials, and be for you the beginning of all imaginable joys. Infallibly true are the words of St. Bernard: “A good conscience shall be safe when the body dies; safe when the soul appears before God.”[14] Be still then in future, you philosophers! Do not calumniate death by your foolish saying: death is of all terrible things the most terrible! It may be terrible to them who make it so by their bad lives. But as long as I keep in the friendship of God, vain is the fear I have had of death hitherto. My only care in future shall be to keep my conscience pure, to serve God faithfully; and then, O death! thou shalt become dear and desirable to me. I will serve God and will await thee at any moment with joy; and when thou comest to call me away, I shall say, trusting in God and with joyful heart, if I cannot say it with the lips: “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord! according to Thy word in peace, because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Amen.
On the Comfort of a Good Conscience during Life, see several sermons in the foregoing fourth part.
- ↑ Nos mortem ridicule timemus.
- ↑ Illic trepidaverunt timore, ubi non erat timor.—Ps. xiii. 5.
- ↑ Non mors ipsa terribilis, sed opinio de morte, quam unusquisque pro conscientia sua perhorrescit; non enim habemus, quod in morte metuamus, si nihil quod metuendum sit, vita nostra commisit.
- ↑ Suæ igitur unusquisque conscientiae vulnus accuset, non mortis acerbitatem.—S. Ambr. L. de Bona Morte, c. viii.
- ↑ Hoc non mortis vitium est, sed nostræ infirmitatis, qui delectatione hujus vitæ capimur, et cursum hunc consummare trepidamus, in quo plus est amaritudinis tuam voluptatis.
- ↑ Nemo vitam acciperet, si daretur scientibus.
- ↑ Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! Multum incola fuit anima mea.—Ps. cxix. 5, 6.
- ↑ Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem, vivum. Quando veniam? Et apparebo ante faciem Dei?—Ibid. xli. 3.
- ↑ Surgite, et ite, quia non habetis hic requiem.—Mich. ii. 10.
- ↑ Non enim videbit me homo, et vivet.—Exod. xxxiii. 30.
- ↑ Vides non esse mortem, quæ dolorem affert, sed malam conscientiam.
- ↑ Mori male times, et vivere male non times.
- ↑ Ut non contristemini, sicut et ceteri qui spem non habent.—I. Thess. iv. 12.
- ↑ Bona conscientia secura erit, cum corpus morietur; secura cum anima coram Deo præsentabitur.