people with by the Prophet Osee: “Wo to them when I shall depart from them.”[1]
The dying sinner will be completely abandoned by God. Poor sinner on your death-bed! “where is thy God?”[2] Look around you; turn from one side to the other: “where is thy God?” Ah, He is not with you! He whom you have rejected during your life has now abandoned you and cast you off forever. If you hear His words in your heart, they will be only words of scorn and mocking laughter, with which He will rejoice at your misery, and mock your helplessness. You have neglected all My graces, inspirations, exhortations, patience, and mercy: “You have despised all My counsel, and have neglected My reprehensions. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock, when that shall come to you which you feared.”[3] Cry out to heaven as loud as you please; O my God! O merciful God! in what a miserable state my soul is! Help, ah, help me, my God! What! your conscience will answer in His name, your God! whom you have not sought by true contrition even in your last illness? Your God! Look for him in your coffers among your gold; that is the god you have adored. See that woman whom you have worshipped; that man whom you have served more zealously than Me; those comrades of your debauchery, with whom you have often mocked at holy things. What have I to do with yon? What are you to Me? Go to the goods and joys of earth, in which you have hitherto sought your pleasure. “Where are their gods, in whom they trusted? Let them arise and help you: and protect you in your distress.”[4] Call on them to help you now; for you did not accept My aid when it was time to do so. Thus, not only is there no help or comfort from God for the dying sinner; but the very thought of God only makes his misery greater.
The prayers of the priest shall be terrible to him. How must the living soul feel in that almost dead body, when it sees itself abandoned by all in heaven and on earth! What a terrible sight for it is the priest with the crucifix, saying those last prayers which fill the just with indescribable joy, but the wicked with despair; for there is not a word in them that does not announce eternal damnation to the sinner. “Go forth,
- ↑ Væ eis cum recessero ab eis!—Osee ix. 12.
- ↑ Ubi est Deus tuus?—Ps. xli. 4.
- ↑ Despexistis omne consilium meum, et increpationes meas neglexistis. Ego quoque in interitu vestro ridebo; et subsannabo cum vobis id quod timebatis advenerit.—Prov. i. 25, 26.
- ↑ Ubi sunt dii eorum, in quibus habebant, fiduciam? Surgant, et opitulentur vobis, et in necessitate vos protegant.—Deut. xxxii. 37, 38.
