Meditation Thirteenth.
On preparing for the particular judgment.
I, BE you ready: for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come. St Luke, xii. 40. The time of death will not be the time to prepare ourselves to die well: to die well and happily, we must prepare ourselves before-hand. There will not be time then to eradicate bad habits from the soul, to expel from the heart its predominant passions, and to extinguish all affection to earthly goods. The night cometh when no man can work. St. John ix. 4. All in death will be night, when nothing will be seen; and hence, nothing done. The heart hardened, the mind obscured, confusion, fear, the desire of health, will all render it almost impossible at the hour of death to set in order a conscience confused and entangled in sin.
II. The saints thought they did but little, though they spent their whole lives in preparing for death, by acts of penance, prayer, and the practice of good works; and they trembled when they came to die. The venerable John, of Avila, although he had led a very holy life from his youth, when it was announced to him that he was about to die, made answer and said, O that I had but a little more time to prepare myself for death! And what shall we say when the summons of death shall be brought to us? No, my God, I do not wish to die disquieted and ungrateful, as at present I should die, if death were to overtake me; I desire to change my life, I desire to bewail my offences against thee, I desire to love thee with my whole heart. O Lord, help me, enable me to do something for thee, before I die: for thee, who hast died for the love of me.
