your tongue in check lest you should injure your neighbor’s good name; tamed your body by mortification and fasting so as to keep it in continence and temperance. I am that fortitude with which you opposed those temptations and allurements in this or that dangerous occasion, so as not to allow any man or any worldly custom to make you unfaithful to God. I am that meekness with which you heard so silently that sarcastic laugh, those biting remarks, those insulting words, pardoned your enemies and opponents, and gave up all idea of revenge for God’s sake. I am that Christian patience with which you so constantly bore so many trials, crosses, misfortunes, sufferings, and so much pain and poverty. I am that resignation with which you always submitted so completely in all circumstances to the will of God. We are your works. Rejoice at us now, and bless the time in which we were accomplished!
This thought fills him with unspeakable comfort. These are the treasures that a good conscience shall show the dying man and lay before him as a provision for his journey. “As they that dig for a treasure: and they rejoice exceedingly when they have found the grave,”[1] and when the time of their departure approaches. Truly it is a joyful thing for a soul to bring such treasures to the Lord when the account is to be rendered, and like the faithful servant to be able to say: “Lord, Thou didst deliver to me five talents;” namely, a reasoning soul with its three powers, a sensitive body with its five senses, temporal goods to support my life, supernatural grace to keep me from evil and help me to do good. Behold I have not allowed those gifts to lie idle; so much have I gained with them! Sometimes, it is true, I might have used them better and more profit ably; oftentimes, I must confess, I have committed sins and faults; but eternal thanks to Thee! as far as I know I have repented of and washed them away by sincere sorrow; I hate and detest them with my whole heart, and because Thou hast given me such a living proof of Thy mercy I will praise and bless Thee all the more for all eternity. What shall I now say of that exceeding great consolation which the dying man shall experience when he remembers all the poor and needy he has so often helped out of his own pocket through Christian charity; the hungry people he has fed; the sick he has visited; the sorrowful he has comforted by help and counsel; the souls in purgatory whose
- ↑ Quasi effodientes thesaurum; gaudentque vehementer cum invenerint sepulchrum.—Job iii. 21, 22.
