ably soon strike the last blow. What art thou doing, Bernard? There is no time to be lost. Where is thy prayer, thy fasting, thy penance and mortification? It will be too late bye-and-bye to look after those things. Now is the time to be up and doing!” Pope Innocent IX, once took the general of our Society, Father Claude Aquaviva, to his private chamber, and after having shown him a number of costly things that were safely kept under lock and key in different coffers, said to him: “What do you think, Father, that I have in this coffer?” “I do not know,” answered the other; “your Holiness doubtless has some precious treasure or relic of some saint.” But when the chest was opened there was nothing in it but the picture of the Pope him self, kneeling before a coffin. “You know, Father,” said the Pope, “that according to the duties of my office I have often to decide most weighty matters; you know also that I have to look out for the eternal welfare of my soul; now, that I may do every thing according to the requirements of justice, and at the same time not endanger my soul, nor become tepid in the service of God, I look at this picture and say to myself these words: ‘Do now what you would wish to have done when you shall be shut up in this coffin.'"[1]
Conclusion and exhortation often to think of death. My dear brethren, if we wish to lead good and holy lives the best thing for us to do is to meditate frequently on death, “Behold, a dead man was carried out.” It is not convenient for us to kneel down beside a coffin every day; but we can daily follow the advice of Thomas à Kempis, and think, for instance, when we get up in the morning: this evening I may be lying dead. When going to rest: perhaps I shall be found dead in my bed to-morrow morning. If a neighbor, friend, or acquaintance dies, I can think: one day or other my turn will come too. If I hear the funeral bell tolling: this bell will one day ring for me also. When going out of the house: one day I shall be carried out of this house dead. When passing by a churchyard: that place will be my home one of these days; how would I wish to have lived when that time comes? Must I not, then, prepare for that supreme hour? Let those be our thoughts, that our resolution. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Blessed are those who are already dead and acquainted with death before their time comes. Amen.
- ↑ Fac nunc quod volueris fecisse, cum in tali capsa fueris inclusus.
