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,
