shall be safely stored up for me in heaven by Our Lord Himself. Therefore I will now bestow a good part of my temporal wealth in charity, thus sending it on before me into eternity. Death will strip me of all my clothing. No matter; it cannot take from me the beautiful robe of sanctifying grace, the mortification of my senses, patience in crosses and adversities, constant contentment with and resignation to the will of God, and the other virtues with which my soul shall be adorned. Therefore as long as I live I shall do my best to acquire those virtues. Death will deprive me of all the favor and esteem I may enjoy amongst men; in a short while no one will remember me; let it be so; that is but a small matter. But it cannot take from me my humility, my forgiveness of injuries, my love for my enemies. Therefore I will bear meekly and humbly for God’s sake whatever men may do to spite me. Death will at once deprive me of all pleasures and comforts and of the love and society of men. Let it do so! I shall not require those things at the end of my life. But it cannot take from me my prayers, my morning and evening devotions, my frequent confessions and holy Communions, my constant intimacy with God, the sermons I have heard so often, the reading of spiritual books, the upright supernatural intention in all my actions. These things shall remain with me; these shall follow me into eternity, as the Word of God itself assures me: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: for their works follow them.”[1] Therefore I will be constant in the practice of those good works during the short and uncertain time of this life. Death will give my body over to the worms, to be changed in a short time into dust and ashes; be it so; it is nothing to me! But all the more earnestly will I now mortify that flesh with toil and labor, with temperance and fasting, with voluntary penances and austerities, and so wear it away in the zealous service of my God. For of what use is this body of mine to me in this world, since it must rot away like a dead ox or dog, it it cannot render some service to my immortal soul? Therefore in future all my care shall be for my soul.
After the example of holy servants of God. Such were the thoughts with which St. Bernard used to encourage himself. “Bernard,” he would say to himself daily, “the axe is already laid at the root of the tree; death will prob-
- ↑ Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur. Amodo jam dicit Spiritus ut requiescant a laboribus suis; opera enim illorum sequuntur illos.—Apoc. xiv. 13.
