still afraid to leave the world and to enter into a long eternity, because they do not know how things will be with them there. In a word, death is bitter and unwelcome to all. Simeon’s only wish was to see the Redeemer of the world, the promised Messias; when that wish was gratified and he held the Saviour in his arms, he had nothing more to desire, and at once, without fear or anxiety, began to invite death: “Now,” he said, “Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace: because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Now let me die and go to the other world, since I have nothing more to desire in this. He was like one who lights a candle to find a piece of money he has dropped; when the money is found, the candle is blown out. Simeon kept alive the flickering light of his life to find the Messias; he has found Him, and now he wishes the light to be extinguished; “now Thou dost dismiss,” now I am willing to die. But what do I wonder at? What reason had Simeon to fear death? Should he not rather long for it with desire? He was a pious, holy man, as the Gospel says: “This man was just and devout, and the Holy Ghost was in him.” My dear brethren, death is a bitter, dreadful, and fearful thing, but not for pious and just servants of God. The pious man has good cause to rejoice at the thought of death, and to await its approach with exultation; for a good life and conscience take from death all its terrors, as I shall now prove to the consolation of all good Christians.
Plan of Discourse.
A good conscience takes away all that is terrible in death itself, as I shall show in the first part. A good conscience takes away from death all that is terrible in its circumstances; this I shall prove in the second part.
Immaculate Virgin Mary, who through humility didst obey the law of purification, and you, pure spirits of heaven, obtain for us the grace to cleanse our consciences by true repentance, and to avoid all sin in future; so that on the approach of death we may say or think with joyful hearts: “Now Thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord!”
All the terrors of death come from a bad life.
If I prove that neither in death itself nor in its circumstances there is anything fearful or terrible, save and except a bad life and the bad conscience it leaves behind it in the dying man, then I shall have made my subject sufficiently clear, that, namely, a