Our Lord has instituted those sacraments partly for the healing of bodily illness. According to the testimony of the holy fathers, the tardiness of those people in receiving the last sacraments de prives them of their efficacy, because they are received too late.
Even if he has that manner of death, he knows not if God will give him the powerful grace of repentance. See, all these points I do not wish to delay on any longer today although thev are so well established by experience that I might easily use them in proof of my subject. And that you may have still less to urge in your favor, I will take it for certain and granted that you shall not die a sudden death; that you shall have the use of reason to the last; that neither your illness nor the fear of death shall disturb your mental balance; that you shall have some knowledge of the approach of death, nay, that you shall foresee your last hour; that you shall have time enough to make your confession; that you shall have at your service an experienced confessor, who with crucifix in hand shall remain with you advising you till the last moment. I hardly think you or any one else shall have all these things together; but for the moment I suppose that such shall be your good luck. All I wish to ask you now is this: when has God promised you, or given you any sign of His will to this effect, that even in those circumstances He will give you the great grace of conversion and true repentance? Answer me that if you can, for I have never read anything about it.
For God has not promised it to anyone. What, you reply, are you then so unacquainted with holy Scripture? Are there not hundreds of passages in it to show forth the goodness, mildness, and mercy of God, and His readiness to forgive? Has not God said that at what hour soever the sinner is converted He will accept his repentance? Do we not find in the Book of Ezechiel that oft-repeated and consoling assurance: “The wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him, in what day soever he shall turn from his wickedness,”[1] no matter whether that day is the last or the first? Come back to Me, He cries out to all sinners; “Return to Me and I will receive thee,”[2] and I will no longer remember thy former sins. See, there is the foundation on which you build the house of your eternity, and as if you were quite certain of it, you continue to sin and to defer repentance till the last moment. I acknowledge that apparently the promise is a favorable one for you. But only in
