Meditation on Death

Photo: R. Massaro Cathedral of the Incarnation Nashville, Tennessee





MEDITATION ON DEATH
IMITATION OF CHRIST, CHAPTER 23

The hour of death will soon come for you. See to it that you spend your time here well. There is a common saying that human beings are here today and gone tomorrow. And once they are out of sight, they are soon forgotten.

How dull we are and hard of heart, for we think only of the present and make little provision for the life hereafter! If you were wise, you would so order your life as though you were to die before the day is over.

If your conscience were clear, you would not be afraid of death. Better to give up sin than to fear death. If you are unprepared to face death today, how will you be tomorrow? Tomorrow is uncertain and you may not be here to see it.

What good is a long life if we do not use it to advance spiritually? Sad to say, it often happens that a long life adds to our guilt and not to our amendment. If only we could point to one day in our life that was really well spent! Many count the years of their conversion, but often there is little to show for it.

If it is frightening to die, it may be more dangerous to live long. You are truly blessed if you keep the hour of your death before you and prepare yourself for it...

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

THREE WORDS OF WISDOM

A HAPPY DEATH

SS. Cosmas & Damian Church-Twinsburg, Ohio
St. Joseph-Patron of a Happy Death

For the person on the road of spiritual perfection, the thought of death should be on one's mind daily. Keeping the goal of heaven in mind helps us to make choices throughout the day that are pleasing to the Lord. We are pleasing to him when we try to respond in charity to the challenges of every day life. We please him by forgiving and showing mercy to our neighbor. We please him by bearing patiently our own sufferings and trials, as well as helping others to bear their sufferings patiently.

There are many spiritual books with the theme of preparing for death. St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote a book with that actual title, Preparation for Death.  It is an excellent book that I would highly recommend. However, recently, I picked up one of my favorite spiritual books, The Imitation of Christ, and opened to the meditation in Chapter 23 entitled, Meditation on Death.  In my opinion, it is one of the best spiritual pieces written on helping the soul to prepare for death.  Here are some excerpts from the chapter:

The Hour of death will soon come for you. See to it that you spend your time here well. There is a common saying that human beings are here today and gone tomorrow. And once they are out of sight, they are soon forgotten.

How dull we are and hard of heart, for we think only of the present and make little provision for the life hereafter! If you were wise, you would so order your life as though you were to die before the day is over.

If it is frightening to die, it may be more dangerous to live long. You are truly blessed if you keep the hour of your death before you and prepare yourself for it. If you ever saw anyone die, remember that you too must travel the same path...

Strive to do good deeds while you are well, for when you are sick you do not know what you will be able to do. Sickness does not often change us for the better. Also, few are sanctified by making many pilgrimages...

How many people will remember you and pray for you once you are dead?

Attend to those things that are to God's honor and glory. Honor the Saints and follow their example and you will have friends waiting to receive you into everlasting dwellings (Lk 16:9) when your life here is ended.
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis

In point number 4 of his meditation. He states there are 6 things the wise person seeks to obtain a happy death:

1.  A perfect contempt of the world
2.  An ardent desire to progress in virtue
3.  A love of discipline
4.  A prompt obedience
5.  A denial of self
6.  A patient bearing of all adversities for the love of Christ

Let us pray to Our Lady through the powerful prayer of the Rosary to help us at the hour of our death: ...Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

PRAYER OF BLESSED CARDINAL NEWMAN
FOR A HAPPY DEATH
FEAST DAY: OCTOBER 9


Oh, my Lord and Savior, 
support me in that hour
in the strong arms of your Sacraments,
and by the fresh fragrance of your consolations.
Let the absolving words be said over me,
and the holy oil sign and seal me,
and your own Body be my food,
and your Blood my sprinkling;
and let my sweet Mother, Mary, breathe on me,
and my Angel whisper peace to me,
and my glorious Saints (NN.) smile upon me;
that in them all, and through them all,
I may receive the gift of perseverance,
and die, as I desire to live,
in your faith, in your Church, in your service,
and in your love. Amen.

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

Tabernacle of the week

Our Lady of Consolation Shrine

Carey, Ohio

Side Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows

Prayer for a Happy Death

O Mary, my good Mother, after Jesus you are my hope and consolation. By your protection make me persevere in my firm determination to offend God no more and to prefer a thousand deaths to the deliberate commission of one mortal sin! Obtain for me the grace of final perseverance, and grant that I may remember to ask for it during the time of temptation at the hour of death. You are the refuge of sinners and our perennial help. Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for me.

O Mother of Jesus, I offer you the last day, last hour and last moment of my life, and everything that shall take place in me at that last moment--in honor of the last moment, hour and day of your life, and of all that occurred in you on that day. If it pleases you, unite me with all the holy and divine dispositions of your maternal heart and your pure soul. Grant that, by your merits and prayers, my last thoughts, words, acts and breaths may be consecrated to the honor of the last thoughts, words, acts and breaths both of your Son and of yourself. Grant that I may die loving him with his holy love; that I may be utterly consumed and sacrificed to his glory; that my life may end with a last act of most pure love of him.

Prayer of St. John Eudes

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Catechism Quote

Catechism-#1014

The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a sudden an unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord", to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us "at the hour of our death" in the Hail Mary; and to entrust ourselves to St. Joseph the patron of a happy death.

From the Rule of Life for the

Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites:

1. At the time of death:

a. The Community will have a Mass offered.

b. The Community will pray together:

1. Evening Prayer of the dead, with a particular reference to the deceased member as well as to all the deceased of the Order; or

2. The Rosary; or

3. Other suitable prayers.

c. Each member will, if possible, have Mass offered or participate in a Mass and receive Holy

Communion for the deceased.

2. For the deceased members of the entire Order:

Carmelites should remember the deceased members of the Order in their daily prayers.

(Sec. 12, Article 9)

I found this prayer to Our Lady in an old Byzantine prayer book that belonged to my grandmother.

Consecrating the Last Three Hours of our Life to Mary

To Thee, O Mother of my soul, I consecrate the last Three Hours of my life. When death cuts the thread of my life, give my soul to Jesus and say: "I love it." This alone will be enough to obtain for me the benediction of my God and the happiness of seeing Thee for all eternity. Amen.

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Carmelite Quote

Recently we celebrated the feast of All Carmelite Saints, and I was thinking of the type of death the saints experienced. In the Living Flame of Love, St. John of the Cross speaks of the death experienced by the soul taken with love.

If the death of other people is caused by sickness or old age, the death of these persons is not so induced, in spite of their being sick or old; their soul is not wrested from them unless by some impetus and encounter of love far more sublime than previous ones; of greater power, and more valiant, since it tears through this veil and carried off the jewel, which is the soul.

The death of such persons is very gentle and very sweet, sweeter and more gentle than was their whole spiritual life on earth. For they die with the most sublime impulses and delightful encounters of love, resembling the swan whose song is much sweeter at the moment of death.

St. John of the Cross-Living Flame of Love, Stanza I #30
Is this the kind of death you long for? The soul who experiences this death is the one whose heart has been purified so that it may see God. We could say that we do not "go" to heaven, but that heaven embraces us.

St. John of the Cross' Prayer of a Soul taken with Love

 

Lord God, my Beloved, if you still remember my sins in such a way that you do not do what I beg of you, do your will concerning them, my God, which is what I most desire, and exercise your goodness and mercy, and you will be known through them. And if you are waiting for my good works so as to hear my prayer through their means, grant them to me, and work them for me, and the sufferings you desire to accept, and let it be done. But if you are not waiting for my works, what is it that makes you wait, my most clement Lord? Why do you delay? For if, after all, I am to receive the grace and mercy that I entreat of you in your Son, take my mite, since you desire it, and grant me this blessing, since you also desire that.Who can free themselves from lowly manners and limitations if you do not lift them to yourself, my God, in purity of love? How will human beings begotten and nurtured in lowliness rise up to you, Lord, if you do not raise them with your hand that made them?You will not take from me, my God, what you once gave me in your only Son, Jesus Christ, in whom you gave me all I desire. Hence I rejoice that if I wait for you, you will not delay.With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?

According to St. John of the Cross there are three paths that lead to union with God:

1. Purgative Way-The purification of the soul that takes place when one begins the life of prayer and desires to become perfect. The soul will normally pass through the "night" of the senses and the "night" of the spirit.

2. Illuminative Way-The soul begins the life of the spirit having mortified its passions and appetites. Nothing in the physical world satisfies the heart longing for God.

3. Unitive Way-After having passed through the purgative and illuminative way the soul reaches the highest union in this life: spiritual marriage.

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS