that He may visit and console the sick; nay, He goes there willingly, and often far more willingly than to the superb palaces of the great. Nor is He disgusted at the filth and stench of disease; for He does not refuse to enter into a mouth that is already half decayed.
What folly and madness to refuse the visit of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament! O dearest Saviour! what thanks and love we owe Thee for such condescension and for the favor Thou showest us when we are most in need of Thy visit and consolation! But what am I speaking of? folly and stupidity of us mortals! often we have no desire for this most loving, and to us most necessary, visit! So it is, my dear brethren. There are men, Christians, Catholics, who if they ever object to be visited by Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament do so especially during the time of sickness, so that they have then to be almost forced to receive holy Communion by extreme necessity. They must be begged and prayed before they will admit Our Lord. What incomprehensible folly! We shall consider it briefly in the
Second Part.
They are guilty of it who put off receiving the holy Viaticum till the last moment. In a certain play there was once represented a grand palace, before the door of which all kinds of men were standing waiting for an opportunity to enter and hand in their petitions; but no one was admitted unless he was a friend of the attendant who had to present such petitions, or knew how to flatter him, or was dressed in costly style, or had bribed the porter. Among the crowd there was an honest, upright man, who had been waiting several days for admission, but in vain. “O blind and unjust gates,”[1] he cried out at last, whoso little know whom you should admit first of all! Unjust gates, by which virtue is shut out! I might say the same, my dear brethren, to many a door behind which some one lies dangerously sick. “O unjust door, that so little knowest whom thou shouldst admit!” The doctors come, and the door is thrown wide open; they are sent for in all haste when the sickness first declares itself; and quite right, too. Friends and acquaintances come to see how the sick man is; the door is thrown wide open; nor can we find fault with that. But where is the most skilful Doctor of all? Where is the best, truest and most necessary Friend, Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament? He, too, stands before the door, ready to enter at any moment. He earnestly desires to be admitted to pay a visit
- ↑ O orbæ et injustæ fores.
