what do we gain by thus trying to hide ourselves from death? Shall we be able to avoid it by not thinking of it? No indeed! But on the contrary we should frequently and seriously meditate on it, for thereby we shall be wonderfully helped to lead a good Christian life, as I shall now prove.
Plan of Discourse.
The frequent consideration and remembrance of death is one of the best means of leading a holy life. Such is the whole subject of this exhortation. Judge of the living and the dead! who this day caused the men who were carrying the bier to stand still, that Thou mightest raise the dead to life, awaken now our dulled memories, that we may in future learn to lead better lives by the frequent remembrance of death. Holy Mother, and you, holy guardian angels, help us thereto!
The thought of death is a powerful means of avoiding evil. The whole idea of a good, that is, pious Christian life may be summed up in the twofold precept; avoid evil, do good. But if there is anything to act as a counterpoise against all sin and evil, if there is anything that can spur us on to good and virtuous actions, it is surely the frequent consideration of death, in which one is constantly reminding himself: I shall die; I shall one day be carried to the grave a corpse. In the very beginning of the world God impressed this fact on the mind of man as a necessary preservative against all crime. How happy was the state of Adam in paradise in his first innocence! There was a constant peace between the spirit and the flesh; there was no inclination to evil; all the appetites and desires were in the most harmonious subjection to reason, so that not one of them dared to move without the command of the will (how miserable the state of us poor descendants of Adam, who have always to fight against ourselves, and are constantly assailed by a hundred passions, even against our will, and are thus inclined to evil!), and yet when God gave Adam the command not to eat the forbidden fruit, He at the same time put the thought of death into his mind, lest he should transgress the command. “In what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.”[1] And well worthy of note is it, that as long as this thought remained before the minds of our first parents they experienced no inclination for the forbidden fruit; and during that time, too, the treacherous serpent could do nothing with them; for when he ventured to
- ↑ In quocumque die comederis ex eo, morte morieris.—Gen. ii. 17.
