and the dead; mortification and obedience; a pious reception of the Sacraments, especially on the approach of death; confidence in the Divine Mercy; and, finally, the holy acceptation of death in union with the death of Jesus upon the cross.
These means are sufficiently powerful to preserve us from Purgatory, but we must make use of them. Now, to employ them seriously and with perseverance, one condition is necessary: it is to form a firm resolution of satisfying in this world rather than in the next. This resolution must be based upon faith, which teaches us how easy is satisfaction in this life, how terrible is Purgatory. Be at agreement with thy adversary betimes, says Jesus Christ, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest, perhaps, thy adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, 1 say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing.[1]
To be reconciled with our adversary in the way, signifies, in the mouth of our Lord, to appease Divine Justice, and to make satisfaction on our way through life, before reaching that unchangeable end, that eternity where all penance is impossible, and where we shall have to submit to all the rigours of Justice. Is not this counsel of our Divine Saviour most wise?
Can we appear before the tribunal of God burdened with an enormous debt, which we might so easily have discharged by some works of penance, and which we shall then have to pay by years of torment? "He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life," says St. Catherine of Genoa, "satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a penny." We must, therefore, begin with the firm and efficacious resolution of making
- ↑ Matt v. 25
