thank him, giving him the assurance of their deliverance. [1]
As for us, who have not these supernatural lights, we must pray for all the departed, even for the greatest sinners and the most virtuous Christian. St. Augustine knew the great virtue of his mother, St. Monica; nevertheless, not content with offering his own suffrages for her to God, he asked his readers not to cease recommending her soul to Divine Mercy.
As regards great sinners, who die without being outwardly reconciled with God, we may not exclude them from our suffrages, because we have not the certainty of their interior impenitence. Faith teaches us that all men dying in the state of mortal sin incur eternal damnation; but who are those that in reality die in that state? God alone, who reserves to Himself the judgment of the living and the dead, knows this. As to ourselves, we can but draw a conjectural conclusion from exterior circumstances, and from this we must refrain. It must, however, be confessed that there is everything to be feared for those who die unprepared for death, and all hope seems to vanish for those who refuse to receive the Sacraments. The latter quit this life with exterior signs of reprobation. Nevertheless, we must leave the judgment to God, according to the words, Dei judicium est — " To God belongs judgment." [2] There is more to be hoped for those who are not positively hostile to religion, who are benevolent towards the poor, who retain some practice of Christian piety, or who at least approve and favour piety: there is more, I say, to hope for such persons when it happens that they die suddenly, without having had the time to receive the last Sacraments of the Church.
St. Francis de Sales will not have us despair of the conversion of sinners until their last breath, and even after their death he forbids us to judge evil of those who have
