TWELFTH SERMON
ON THE WORTHLESSNESS OF A DEATH-BED REPENTANCE.
Subject.
Firstly: the grace of true repentance and a happy death is far too great for the sinner to expect it in his last moments. Secondly: the sick man is then far too weak to correspond with divine grace, so as to repent sincerely. Preached on the fifth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
"Go first to be reconciled to your brother." (Matt 5:25)
Introduction.
These words of Our Lord in their obvious sense are to be understood of reconciliation with those with whom we have been at variance or enmity. " If therefore you offer your gift at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has anything against you, leave there your offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to your brother: and then coming you shalt offer your gift," and God will accept it. But how much more necessary is not this exhortation for you, sinner! who are living at variance and enmity with the great God? Yet you hope and desire one day to offer your soul into the hands of your Creator, to die a happy death and so to go to heaven; is not that so? But you have something to do first; " be reconciled to God," as St. Paul advises you. And when do you mean to do that? After a while? Ah, that is too dangerous, as we have seen already. At the end, in your last illness, when you are recommending your soul to God? Oh, that is far worse, your state will be even desperate then! Go first and be reconciled to your God. When death is at hand it will be too late; God Himself denies you all hope of conversion then, and experience denies it you also, as I have shown in my last sermon. But why so? one may think. Why should repentance in the last moment be such a desperate chance? God is still as merciful and desirous of our salvation as He ever was, and the human will is still free, and can then change itself, and, moreover, penance has still the same efficacy in obtaining pardon from God. Do you ask why? I will tell you: there are two reasons; the first comes from the nature of the grace of true conversion and final perseverance; the second, from the nature of man himself, who should then co-operate with that grace. In both cases conversion at the hour of death is, humanly speaking, impossible. Mark the reason:
Plan of Discourse.
The grace of true conversion and a happy death is far too great for the sinner to expect in his last illness. This I shall prove in the first part. The sick man is then far too weak to be able to correspond with the grace of God and to repent sincerely. This I shall prove in the second part. Therefore, sinner ! go first to be reconciled to your God, whilst you still have time !
Such shall be the conclusion, which we ask through the merits of Mary and of our holy guardian angels.
The grace that enables a man to arise from the state of sin, even if he has committed but one mortal sin, and to be truly converted, is a powerful, special grace, coming from the goodness of God alone, a grace that He is not bound to give to any one. Therefore he who has transgressed the commandments in a serious matter has good reason to beg from God most humbly and perseveringly the grace of true repentance, as I have shown at length when speaking of the sacrament of penance. The grace which brings repentance to one who has lived for many years in sin is an extraordinary, uncommonly powerful grace, that over powers the human heart, as St. Augustine says, an almost miraculous grace, which man has still less claim to. The grace of conversion at the last moment, the grace of final perseverance, and a happy death is the most excellent of all; it is one that no man, no matter ho\v holy his life has been, with all his good works, can merit in the strict acceptation of the term; such is the teaching of theologians. But we can and must often humbly and confidently beg it from God, that He may bestow it on us as an alms out of His mercy and goodness. Therefore (although His goodness will never allow one who has lived well to die an unhappy death) God is not obliged to give this grace even to His holiest servants and greatest Saints, and He could refuse it to them without doing them any injustice, absolutely speaking.
And you, sinner! expect all these powerful graces, without which you cannot save your soul (although you might save it with another grace)? And from whom do you expect them? From an angry God, whom you have provoked a thousand times, and whose patience you have worn out? When do you expect them? When you have spent your life in all kinds of wickedness; constantly kept your ears shut to God's inspirations, despised His warnings and threats, trampled so often on the precious blood He shed for you; and after the same God has so repeatedly implored of you during your lifetime to return to Him, and offered you His favor and friendship offers which you have rejected with scorn? When do you. expect those graces? When you see that you are on the point of leaving the world and entering into eternity? When you are tired of sin, or, to speak more truly, when you are no longer able to sin? When you have no more time left to serve God? Then He has to be ready for you, and give you the greatest and most powerful of all graces that He has ever given to His Saints who are in heaven? What are you dreaming of? Where is your common sense? How can you be so presumptuous as to admit such a hope even in imagination? And if God so deals with you as you expect, on whom shall He pour out the vials of His wrath?
No matter how ungrateful and wicked you have been during your life, I should be more willing to believe that God would give you on your death-bed the grace of prophecy, of healing other sick people, or even of raising the dead, than that of con version and final perseverance. And indeed this supposition seems to me the more probable; for even the traitor Judas worked miracles, and a prophet, or one who has miraculous powers, can lead a bad life, and be lost eternally; for, according to Our Lord's own testimony, many will come at the last day and appeal to the wonderful things they have done: " Have not we prophesied in Your name, and cast out devils in Your name, and done many miracles in Your name?" Nevertheless the just Judge will condemn them all to hell: "And then will I profess to them: I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity." Thus, I say, God is more likely to give you the grace of working miracles than that of true penance, perseverance, and a happy death after a life spent in sin and in obstinate resistance to the proffered grace of conversion, when that grace might have been accepted. Indeed, to expect anything else is tantamount to hoping that God will not punish the wicked on that great day on which He intends to let them experience the full power of His justice, the full severity of His anger. No, presumptuous sinner! such a grace is not for you.
Send forth sighs to heaven as you are lying on your bed of sickness, pray as fervently as you know how for that grace (although I much doubt whether you will then think very earnestly of that God whom yon have so constantly forgotten during life) pray, I say, but your own despairing conscience will give you the same answer that Samuel gave the unhappy Saul. The latter was surrounded by his enemies; he knew not what to do, and in his anguish he cried out to the dead prophet: Samuel, holy Prophet! help me in my necessity; " I am in great distress; for the Philistines fight against me; . . .therefore I have called you that you mayest show me what I shall do." " Why askest you me? " was the answer, " seeing the Lord has departed from thee?" or as the Hebrew text has it, " since the Lord is your enemy? " " Therefore has the Lord done to you what you sufferest this day. He will rend your kingdom out of your hand. . . . And the Lord also will deliver Israel with you into the hands of the Philistines, " and to-morrow you and your sons shall be slain, "because you didst not obey the voice of the Lord." Your conscience, sinner! will make you the same reproach on your death-bed. What do you ask or desire in your anguish from that Lord whom you have made your enemy, refusing to be reconciled to Him during life, and remaining His enemy till death? When the merciful God offered you the grace of repentance you should have cried out to Him; then you might have confessed your sins, and having begun to amend your life, have humbly begged for the grace of perseverance and a happy death. But in vain do you now expect that favor from your bitter enemy. In vain do you hope that He whom you refused to recognize during life, and whom you now know simply because you are in extreme necessity in vain do you hope that He will give you His kingdom of heaven, that you have troubled yourself so little about hither-to! But you need not wait long to find out all about this; to day you will be in eternity, and then you will see how matters stand. Do you know what kind of a reproof Jephte gave his countrymen when they came to him for help? Read the eleventh chapter of the Book of Judges. Jephte was a valiant warrior who was banished out of the city by the ancients of Galaad. Shortly after the Ammonites began to wage war with the Israelites and pressed them hard, as the latter had no one to take command of their forces. In this strait the ancients saw the fault they had been guilty of, and went suppliantly to Jephte: "And they said to him: Come you and be our prince, and fight against the children of Ammon, " whom we cannot conquer. See what necessity is able to do. They sought now as their prince and chief one whom a short time before they were unwilling to tolerate as their fellow-citizen. Yes, said Jephte scornfully to them, you can find friendly words for me now! "Are not you the men that hated me, and cast me out of my father's house, and now you are come to me constrained by necessity?" You ask me to help you against your enemies, when you should rather expect punishment from me.
Such, too, was the reproach uttered by the emperor Charles V. when he had after a blood y battle taken Prisoner John Frederick, Duke and Elector of Saxony, who had taken Luther's part against the emperor. The captive prince fell on his knees before him and begged pardon for having so wantonly violated the fidelity he owed his lawful sovereign. " Most clement emperor," he said, amongst other things, "now I am in your power!" Indeed! said Charles disdainfully, am I the emperor at last? Before I was only the Austrian Charles, but now that you are a captive and cannot defend yourself I am your most gracious emperor; you will be treated as you deserve. And he passed up on the rebel the sentence of death. Truly impressive are those words of Jephte and Charles! But still more impressive will they be when heard from the mouth of the Emperor of heaven, and when He addresses them to the presumptuous sinner, who in the last extremity begs of Him for the first time the grace of forgiveness and a happy death. What, He will say, are not you the man that hated Me during your life? Are not you he who has so often driven Me out of your house by your impurity, pride, and injustice, by your abominable cursing and swearing, by your gluttony and drunkenness, by the hatred and revenge you cherished against your neighbor? Do you think I have forgotten all that? Now you come to Me compelled by necessity; now that you see that no one but I can help you; that you are a prisoner in My hands; and that you have no more time in which to wage war on Me by your sins. Now at last you have come to Me. Now at last I am your Emperor, your Lord and your God, whom you treated like a worthless rag during your lifetime. Now you begin to know who I am, after having completely ignored Me; now you wish to speak Me fair, after having mocked and ridiculed Me all your life; but it is not love, but rather extreme necessity and a slavish fear of hell that drive you to My feet. You shall have what you deserve, namely, the sentence of eternal condemnation.
Hear the words of Our Lord Himself in the Gospel of St. Matthew: " Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord. And then will I profess to them: I never knew you; depart from Me, you that work iniquity." So did God act towards the wicked Israelites, when He said of them: " They have turned their back to Me, and not their face," but the time shall come when I will treat them in the same manner. " And in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us. But I will answer them: Where are your gods, whom you have made thee? let them arise and deliver you in the time of your affliction." Sinner, you shall also hear those words in your extremity! Where are the gods you have adored and honored in your lifetime? You have not adored Me. Where are the idols, unchaste man! whom you loved more than Me? Where is your wealth, miser! that you looked on as your god? Where the world, vain child of the world! which you took against My strict command as the guide of your actions? Where are those men, tepid Christian! to please whom you have omitted so much good and done so much evil? " Let them arise and deliver you in the time of your affliction; " call now upon those gods of yours, and see if they can save you from hell! You have not known Me during your life; neither will I know you now in your death.
All this happened in visible manner to a dying Christian of whom Henry Gran writes. A holy old man, who had come out of his solitude into a town to sell the baskets he had made, sat down for a moment to rest before the door of a house in which a rich man lay mortally sick. Suddenly he saw two terrible looking black men on black horses ride up to the door, enter the house, and go into the sick room; then a mournful voice cried out: "Lord, help me!" Whereupon the devils began to laugh, and said: "Do you remember God at last? Do you seek Him now at the sunset of your life? Why did you not do so earlier, while you still had light? Why did you not turn to God while you had time? Now there is no hope for you." Nearly the same answer was given by one of the holy fathers to a dying man. The Abbot Mutius once visited a man whose life was despaired of; he saw from his mournful face and other signs that the dying man was in great trouble, and therefore he said to him: "My dear friend, I am afraid that your conscience troubles you, and that death, which you have not expected so soon, has filled you with terror." That is only too true," answered the sick man, sighing deeply, " but I implore of you, father, beg of God to grant me a little time, that I may repent of my sins and amend my life. " And Mutius answered him: " Do you now seek for time to repent, when you have finished the time of your life? What were you doing in all the past years? Could you not then have healed your wounds? But instead of that, you have inflicted new ones on your soul" and wantonly added to your misery. Now there is no use asking for more time.
O sinner! you, too, shall be asked, when you pray for grace at the end of your life, Do you now seek for time to repent, when you have finished the time of your life? What have you been doing all these years? God has given you time enough to prepare for death. You have seen many other Christians go to holy Communion almost every week; did you ever take the trouble to receive it once a month? You have heard so many sermons; have you ever tried to profit by them and to amend your life? You have often seen the confessional and an experienced priest ready to receive you and relieve you of the burden of your sins; have you ever even once made a candid confession with true sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment? What were you doing from morning till night but spending your time in pleasures and pastimes and in the pursuit of temporal gain, heaping sin on sin, as if God had given you time only for that purpose? And now, when time is no more for you, you ask for an opportunity to make good the great loss? No, that cannot be; your prayer cannot be granted. Ah, unhappy man! do not trust to a future repentance, which is to be when you see that you are about to die. The grace of conversion, of perseverance, of a happy death is far too great for you to hope for it then from an angry God, who will already have begun to act as your Judge. But there is another point: supposing even that there will then be still room for you in the divine mercy, and that God will not refuse you the powerful grace of conversion, yet on your own side all hopes of salvation must vanish; for then you shall be neither disposed nor able to work with the grace of God so as to be truly converted, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
He who thinks that he will be able to repent sincerely at the end of an ill-spent life shows that he does not understand what is meant by sincere repentance. It is easy enough to confess your sins to the first priest that comes in your way; and if he asks you whether you are heartily sorry for having offended the good God, to answer yes; and if he further inquires whether you wish to be absolved and to receive the last sacraments, to say yes to that too. But is that sufficient to obtain pardon of your sins? Gracious God! if such were the case, how many Christians would be in heaven who are actually burning in hell ! Do you wish to know, sinner! what it means to do true penance? Then pay attention. To do penance is to love sincerely and earnestly what before hated against the law of God; sincerely and earnestly to hate what I before loved contrary to the divine will, and to detest, curse, and reprobate all such unlawful thoughts, words, and actions; to love God more than all joys, goods, honors, and creatures in the world; to hate and detest my sins more than all imaginable evils, pains, and troubles in the world, no, more than death itself, and all that from a supernatural motive; that is, not through desire of a natural gain or profit, nor through fear of a natural misfortune, or the dread of death; but on account of the divine anger and the eternal punishment we have deserved.
Now, my dear brethren, is it likely that such a sudden change will take place, and that one who has grown old in vice, whose inclinations and desires have always aimed at sensual, carnal, and unlawful objects; who has loved sin all his life, and who is leaving it now through force, no, who would not leave it if he had not death before his eyes; one to whom sin by long use has grown to be a second nature; who has seldom made an act of the love of God, or of supernatural sorrow; who hardly understands what it is to repent sincerely; who, while he was strong and healthy, had such frequent opportunities of repenting with the full force of his reason, and who, instead of using them, said: I cannot give up sin now; I cannot yet amend my life; I cannot do penance for a while longer; is it likely, I ask, that a man of that kind will change so suddenly as to do sincere penance in so short a time, and at such an inconvenient time too?
When a large door has been kept fast bolted for twenty years without being opened, so that its hinges are rusted, can a weak man open it at once? Not by any means; he will be almost obliged to use a windlass at it. " Behold," the Almighty has often said before to such a dying man, " I stand at the gate and knock; if any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the door, I will come in to him." Now after all the knocking for so many years, the sinner could not make up his mind to open the door of his heart to the Lord by true repentance, so that it has become, as it were, quite rusted; how, then, will he be able to open it in a hurry when he hears death knocking? Ah, it cost St. Augustine the labor of twelve whole years to combat himself and overcome his evil inclinations and bad habits, and at last it required almost a miracle to change him. Can the dying sinner expect that miracle in the short time that remains to him when he is told that he is in a dangerous state and must die?
No indeed! He will be like so many others, who died with the bad habits and desires in which they lived. I will give you a few examples. A rich miser was dying; he was attended by three priests, members of a well-known order; one was an excel lent preacher, the other a master of novices, the third the man's own son, a pious, edifying, truly spiritual man. What did not those three zealous priests do for the soul of the dying which they were burning with zeal to save? One said: "Sir, please repeat after me, with heart more than with lips, the words: My God I believe in You!" The sick man answered: "I think the wheat crop will be a failure; my barns are full, so that they require to have two arches and buttresses built on to them. The price of corn has gone up very high; wheat costs two gulden the measure; I believe I shall succeed in emptying my barns and filling my coffers with money." " For God's sake," said the other priest, " raise your heart and mind to heaven; look at your crucified Redeemer; here He is before your eyes! " "Yes," said the sick man, "that crucifix is made of silver; in these days we can be sure of no one; even in one's own house there may be thieves; we cannot be too careful; there are rascals who would steal Our Lord Himself if He were made of silver; son, take the crucifix and lock it up. But where" are the keys? I had them under my pillow; some one must have taken them away. wretched man that I am! I see how it is! I am betrayed, and robbed!" " My dear father," answered the son, "here are the keys; no one has taken them; do not annoy your self so much about them." "Oh," said the dying man, "it is easy for you to talk ! You are a religious and provided for. I know better and have had experience of the labor and trouble it takes to put a trifle together." The third priest read an act of contrition for him, and asked him to repeat after him the words: my God! I am sorry from my heart that I have ever offended You by my sins! Whereupon the dying man said: "I am sorry, ah, bitterly sorry, that I have lent such a large sum of money to that untrustworthy fellow! He promised to pay me in a certain time; but the time is long since past, and he has not given me a penny. It is a dead loss to me! How could I have been so silly, so imprudent as to trust him!" Continuing to make those beautiful acts of faith, hope, charity and contrition, he at last gave up the ghost. What do you think of this incident, my dear brethren? Are you surprised at its tragical termination? I am not a bit; for you cannot expect any other wine out of a vessel but that which was poured into it. Such, too, was the end of an unhappy young man. Standing by his bed side were his mother, a pious, virtuous lady, and her other children, brothers of the sick man, who were all priests and confessors. The dying man wept bitterly, not on account of his past sins, nor through love of God or hope in Him, but through love of life and despair of recovery; for his only words were: "Alas! I must die so young! I must leave forever my companions; never again shall I take part in their games, their feastings, dances, theatrical entertainments! No; instead of these things all that now remains to me is the grave." From these examples we can see what sources of comfort and hope they have who lead bad lives and never think of death. Such people do not even dream of doing penance; and if they attempt it, how could they man age it successfully at so unsuitable a time?
For when the weakened body is filled with pain and anguish the sick man's only thought is how to procure some alleviation; prevent the doctor is at hand to prescribe medicines for him; his friends are thereto see that that he is as comfortable a position as possible, and to prevent others from wearying him by talk; his mind is filled with fear, anxiety, care, and terror on account of having to leave the world and bid adieu to his sorrowing relations. Thus, as we have seen in the last sermon, he is so disturbed at the approach of death that, as experience tells us, he is hardly able to say a Hail Mary with due devotion; while his soul is overwhelmed at the thought of his past sins and surrounded by the demons who assail it with the most violent temptations, so that many holy servants of God have had enough to do to prevent themselves from being completely unnerved at the hour of death. Tell me; would you speak to the sick man in such circumstances of an important law-suit on which much depends, and ask him to advise you on it? By no means; he is not in a fit state for that work. Is it then likely that he should be able to manage the most important of all affairs, on which his salvation depends, and of which he has been utterly careless hitherto? That he should be able to settle with God for all the sins he has committed during his whole life, in thought, word, deed, or omission, and in the short time that remains, to arrange the long law-suit that he has been carrying on against God? How then can we believe that he will do true penance and die a happy death? Humanly speaking, and taking all the circumstances into consideration, the thing is impossible.
Yes, I say again, as I have said already, that the sick man will agree to all the priest says to him; he will express sorrow for his sins; he will kiss the crucifix; he will pray for forgiveness and receive absolution, holy Communion, Extreme Unction, and the general absolution. Do you think therefore that he must die well? But what else could a Christian do? Do you imagine he must throw away the crucifix with disgust; refuse to express sorrow for his sins, to receive absolution or holy Communion? No Catholic would act in that way unless he were mad and out of his senses. But do you believe that he does all those pious actions with sincerity and from a supernatural motive? " No," asks St. Basil, " do you think the dying man knows at all what he does and says?"
It is easy to get an echo even from the hardest rocks and mountains. Call out the name Jesus between the rocks, and they will answer Jesus; not because they understand what they say, but because the echo gives back your voice. So it is generally with such dying people. When a man lives a bad life, and puts off conversion till the last moment, what else is his heart but a rock hardened against the grace of God, as the Prophet Jeremias says: " They have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than the rock." Now a man of this kind is lying on his sick bed; you go to him and say: Jesus! He answers: Jesus! You say: Mary, Mother of mercy! He repeats: Mary, Mother of mercy! Are you not sorry that you have offended God? Yes; I am sorry. If you should be re stored to health, will you not serve Him faithfully? Yes; I will! You wish to go to heaven? Yes. my God, I believe in You! O my God, I believe in You! I hope in You! I hope in You! I love You! I love You! There is nothing more that troubles your conscience? No; nothing more. A person looking on at this might be inclined to say: Thanks be to God! he is well prepared! Simple-minded man! it was, after all, but an echo from the hard rock you heard, and the sick man's sighs and tears were caused merely by bodily pain.
Ask all those who have received the last sacraments in a dangerous illness and have recovered again how they felt on the occasion. Many will tell you that they felt quite stupid; the moat will acknowledge that they hardly knew whether they were receiving the sacraments or not. If those people had died they would have been considered as having been well prepared. Well prepared indeed! As far as I myself am concerned, I have been once in danger of drowning, another time of breaking my neck by a fall, and a third time I was grievously ill, and fell in to a fainting fit. I thought I was about to die; but I never raised my mind to God on any of these occasions; my only idea was how I might get safely out of the danger in which I was. It is and must be true,, my dear brethren, with hardly one exception in a hundred thousand cases; he who lives a bad life dies an unhappy death. It is and must be a false hope of salvation that is founded on a death-bed repentance, for the work of repentance cannot then be duly performed. The grace of perseverance and a happy death is far too great for the sinner who defers repentance to expect it; and, besides, the circumstances in which a man finds himself at the hour of death are too disturbing and distracting to allow of a sincere conversion. "Therefore," Christians, " whilst we have time, let us work good," according to the salutary exhortation of St. Paul. Now, whilst we are sound in mind and body, let us make use of the golden opportunity and serve God zealously! We must not trust to the time of sickness. Sinners! Now that you can do it conveniently, be converted sincerely to God! You must not imagine that what I have said concerns you little, as none of you may be minded to defer repentance till the last moment, and all of you may be resolved to repent before the hour of death, although not at once. Ah! I believe you. But almost all those who have been surprised by death in the state of sin have been of the same mind as you are now. They have said to themselves: on some future occasion I will go to confession and amend my life; bye-and-bye I will begin to serve God faithfully, etc.; until at last, before their bye-and-bye came, they fell into a mortal illness, so that in reality they deferred repentance to the hour of death. " Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not the Son of man will come, such is the warning given us by Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who means so well with us all. Vain and useless is it to begin to prepare when He is already knocking at the door. No; be you ready, and ready always. Have you not been so hitherto? Ah, then begin at once! Delay no longer! Prepare now while you have the time of grace to dispose of. Think what depends on this. Nothing less than the eternal fire of hell, in which you will burn, if the Lord, when He comes for you at the hour of death, does not find you prepared. Nothing less than the eternal happiness of heaven depends on it, which is promised to you if you repent sincerely and amend in time. Say to yourselves: alas! unhappy me! if I am but a moment too late with my conversion! There fore I will delay no longer; I have waited only too long already I Now I will begin, Lord! with Your help and grace, that during the rest of my life I may serve You truly, and die a happy death. Amen.
On Deferring Repentance to a Future Time, see the preceding Third Part.