wish in the common mode of expression, a happy end of the present year and beginning of next; but I wish for you and myself:
Plan of Discourse.
A happy end of our years. In the first part I shall explain what this means. That it can and should be realized by every one, and how that is to be done, I shall show in the second part.
Give us Thy grace to this end, O Infant Saviour; we beg it of Thee through the intercession of Thy Mother Mary and our holy guardian angels.
The object of this wish is a happy death. But, you will think, what a sad and melancholy wish for the year! Friends generally wish one another many years of life and happiness on this day; but you talk of the end of our years. Do you then wish us to die? Is it your desire to make an end of our lives? That is a thing that most men cannot think of without fear and trembling; a thing that is looked on generally in the world as the most terrible of all.[1] For then we must separate from all men, leave all that we loved in the world, and thus, stripped of everything, go into the unknown land of a long eternity. Truly your wish is a melancholy one, and you had better have said nothing about it. Yet, my dear brethren, I repeat it, and wish you and myself from my heart a happy end of our years. Mark the terms I use. I wish to each one the end of his years, but a happy end; I wish you death, but a happy death, and one that shall not come until the years of life determined for each one by the all-wise providence of God shall be accomplished; then I wish you a just, holy, and happy end of your life, that your death may be precious in the sight of God and of His saints and the elect in heaven.
No one can wish us anything better. Could I desire anything better for you than this? Is there anything in the world more important for us than a good and happy end to our lives? For what else do we live and spend our years in this world than that we may die well and happily? What should be the object of our greatest, nay, only care, if not to gain heaven by a happy death, and there rejoice with God and the elect for all eternity?
For it matter little to lose this It is true that at the end we must leave all things; but is that so very terrible? What is the value of all that trumpery if we
- ↑ Terribilium omnium terribilissimum mors.
