The Catholic Prayer Book and Manual of Meditations/Litany for a Happy Death
Litany for a Happy Death.
LORD, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
God the Father, who for our sake didst deliver up thy beloved Son to death, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, who didst mercifully submit to the law of death, that we may thereby gain eternal life, Have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, the great comforter of dying Christians,
O divine Jesus! when I shall be seized with my last illness, and warned to prepare for the approach of my Judge, Then, Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my eyes, darkened with the mist of death, shall fix their last dying looks on thy crucified image, Then, Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my pale and ghastly countenance shall fill others with compassion and terror,
When my ears, about to close for ever to all human discourse, shall await the dreadful sound of thy irrevocable sentence,
When my feet, unable to move, shall remind me that my earthly course is drawing to an end,
When my imagination, disturbed with gloomy and frightful phantoms, shall fill my heart with deadly horror,
When my soul, terrified at the view of my sins, and agonized with fear of thy rigorous justice, shall struggle with the angel of darkness,
When my heart, weakened and overwhelmed with the pains of sickness, shall be seized with the last agonies of death, and violently assailed with the last efforts of Satan,
When my friends, assembled round me, shall compassionate my sufferings, and weep for my approaching dissolution,
When all my senses shall fail, and this world for ever vanish from my view,
When the symptoms of death shall appear, and the last tears shall trickle down my cheeks, When tortured by the pangs of death, and oppressed with lengthened agony,
When the last heavy sighs of my heart shall press my soul to leave my body,
When my soul, fluttering at my lips, shall be on the point of beholding her Almighty Judge,
When my soul shall at length depart from this valley of tears, and leave my body pale, cold, and hideous,
When I shall stand all alone before my Judge, and behold at one glance all the sins of my life, and all thy claims, O my God, on my love,
When thou shalt pronounce that awful sentence, which no human power can revoke, and no human art elude,
V. Through thy painful agony and precious death,
R. Deliver us, O Jesus!
LET US PRAY.
O GOD, who hast condemned our bodies to death, but has given us immortal souls to enjoy thee eternally, and hast concealed from us the day and hour of our death, that we may always expect and prepare for our last hour, grant that a holy and penitential life may ensure for us the happiness of a tranquil death. O Divine Jesus! whose precious death should lighten our sorrows, I fervently conjure thee, by the bitterness thou didst endure on the cross, when thy blessed soul was separated from thy adorable body, to be propitious to me and to all sinners in our last awful passage from time to eternity. Amen.
A SHORT PRAYER WHICH MAY BE SAID DAILY FOR THE GRACE OF A HAPPY DEATH.
O MOST dear and adorable Jesus! who wast crucified for the redemption of mankind, I beseech thee, by thy dreadful agony, by thy countless wounds, by the effusion of thy precious blood, by the recommendation of thy sacred soul into the hands of thy Eternal Father, and by thy ignominious death on the altar of the cross, that thou wilt graciously vouchsafe at my last hour to receive my spirit into the bosom of thy mercy.
A PRACTICE MADE USE OF BY ST. MECHTILDIS.
O HOLY Mary, our sovereign Queen! as God the Father by his omnipotence hast made thee most powerful, deign to assist us at the hour of our death, by defending us against all power that is contrary to thine.
Ave Maria.
O HOLY Mary, our sovereign Queen! as God the Son has endowed thee with so much knowledge and charity, that it enlightens all heaven, deign at the hour of our death to illustrate and strengthen our souls with the knowledge of the true faith, that they be not perverted by error or pernicious ignorance.
Ave Maria.
O HOLY Mary, our sovereign Queen! as the Holy Ghost has plentifully poured forth into thee the love of God, deign to instil into us, at the hour of our death, the sweetness of divine love, that all bitterness at that time may become acceptable and pleasant to us.
Ave Maria.