days ago I spoke with him! I saw him this morning at church! A few hours ago he certainly did not think that he would be lying dead now! These and similar reflections are generally made on such occasions. But that one should take advantage of the occurrence and enter into himself and think: That man was healthy, and he is now dead; the same thing may happen tome; I am now strong and vigorous; but perhaps in a short time I may be a corpse like him; if that happened to me, should I be fit to go into eternity? Good reason as there would be for such reflections, there are few who make them. Be you ready, then, cries out Our Saviour; you especially who live so carelessly, for you must know that at what hour you know not the Son of man will come. “Therefore be ready.”
Happy the just, who never die an unprovided death. Just and pious Christians, how happy you are in this respect! How peacefully you can sleep at night! How joyfully you can go through your day’s work! For you always have a good conscience and bear about with you sanctifying grace and the friendship of God. Death may come upon you in public or private; he can do you no harm, but rather good; and whether you die suddenly or after a long illness you are never taken unprepared, and therefore you need never fear death. Even holy servants of God have died suddenly when they did not expect death; but their deaths were not on that account unhappy, but rather holy. St. Simon Stylites, as some authors assert, was surprised by death while standing on his pillar and thrown to the ground. St. Francis de Sales died when about to set out on a journey. St. Francis Xavier was found dead alone on an island, without a soul near him. The zealous and holy Father Francis Cardosa was found dead in his chair, sitting at his table, with a sermon on death before him and his finger still pointing to the words: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”[1] Did these, and perhaps hundreds like them, die an unprovided death? No, my dear brethren; they are saints in heaven; they were taken away by a sudden death, which is neither bad nor to be feared in itself; but their death was not an unprovided one, because they were ready for it. There is a difference between an unforeseen and an unprovided death; the latter is bad, but the former is not always so. What a difference there was between the five wise and the five foolish virgins! Yet the former, as well as the latter, slept when the bridegroom came:
- ↑ Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur.—Apoc. xiv. 13.
