Death of the sinner
“Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee.”—Luke 19:43
Seeing from a distance the city of Jerusalem, where the Jews would soon put him to death, Jesus Christ wept over it. Videns civitatem flevit super illam—“Seeing the city he wept over it.” Our merciful Redeemer wept at the thought of the chastisement that was soon to fall upon the city, and he foretold it to her inhabitants: “Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee.” Unhappy city! One day you shall see yourself surrounded by enemies who will lay you flat to the ground, together with your children, and will not leave in you a stone upon a stone.
Most beloved brethren, this unhappy city is a figure of the soul of a sinner, who at the hour of death shall find himself surrounded on every side by his enemies—first, by the remorse of conscience; secondly, by the assaults of the devils; and thirdly, by the fears of eternal death.
First Point.—The sinner at death shall be tortured by remorse of conscience.
1. “Their soul shall die in a storm” (Job 36:14). The unhappy sinners who remain in sin die in a great tempest, with which God has long beforehand threatened them. “A tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked” (Jer. 23:19). At the onset of his illness the sinner is not much troubled, nor much afraid; for his relatives, friends, and physicians all tell him that it is nothing, and so he flatters himself and hopes to recover. But when his illness grows worse, and the malignant symptoms that herald approaching death begin to appear, then the storm with which the Lord has threatened the wicked begins. “When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction as a tempest shall be at hand” (Prov. 1:27).
This tempest shall break upon the sick man both from the pains of his illness and from the dread of having to depart from this earth and leave everything behind; but still more from the remorse of conscience, which will set before his eyes the whole disorder of his past life. “They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins, and their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them” (Wis. 4:20). Then his sins shall rush upon his mind, and at the sight of them he shall be filled with terror; for his very own iniquities, without need of any other witness, shall assail him and convict him as one deserving of hell.
2. The dying sinner will confess his sins; but, as St. Augustine says, “the repentance that is sought from a sick man is itself infirm” (Sermon 37 on Time). And St. Jerome writes that of a hundred thousand sinners who go on in sin until death, scarcely one shall be saved at that moment. Vix de centum milibus, quorum mala vita fuit, meretur in morte a Deo indulgentiam, unus—“Scarcely one out of a hundred thousand, whose life was evil, merits indulgence from God in death” (Letter on the Death of Eusebius). St. Vincent Ferrer adds that it is a greater miracle to save one such sinner than to raise a dead man to life. Majus miraculum est, quod male viventes faciant bonum finem, quam suscitare mortuos—“It is a greater miracle that those living wickedly make a good end, than to raise the dead” (Sermon 1 on the Nativity of the Virgin).
The wretched will recognize the evil they have done; they will wish to detest it, but shall not be able. Antiochus understood the malice of his sins when he said: “Now I remember the evils that I have done in Jerusalem” (1 Macc. 6:12). He remembered his sins, but had not the spirit to detest them; and he died in despair, oppressed with great sadness, saying: “Behold, I perish with great grief in a strange land” (v. 13). The same thing happened to Saul at the hour of death, as St. Fulgentius tells us: he recognized his sins, and dreaded the punishment they deserved, but he did not hate them. Non odit quid fecerat, sed timuit quod nolebat—“He did not hate what he had done, but feared what he did not want.”
3. Oh, how hard it is for a sinner who has slept for years in sin to make a true conversion at the hour of death, when his mind is darkened and his heart hardened! “His heart shall be as hard as a stone, and as firm as a smith’s anvil” (Job 41:15). During life, instead of softening at the graces and calls of God, he grew ever more hardened, as the anvil is hardened by the repeated strokes of the hammer. “A hard heart shall fare evil at the last” (Ecclus. 3:27). By loving sin until death, he has at the same time loved the danger of his damnation; and therefore God will justly permit him to perish in the very danger in which he chose to live until death.
4. St. Augustine says that he who is abandoned by sin before he himself abandons it will scarcely detest it as he ought at the hour of death; for he will then detest it, not out of hatred for sin, but under compulsion of necessity. Qui prius a peccato relinquitur, quam ipse relinquat, non libere, sed quasi ex necessitate condemnat—“He who is first abandoned by sin, before he himself abandons it, condemns it not freely, but as if from necessity.” But how shall he be able to hate from his heart the sin he has loved until death? He must love the enemy he has until now hated, and hate the person he has until now loved. Oh, what mountains are these to climb!
And the same thing will likely happen to him that once befell certain townsmen, who kept many wild beasts penned up so as to loose them upon their enemies whenever they came. But when they set them free, the beasts, instead of attacking the enemy, devoured the townsmen themselves. So when the sinner wishes to drive his iniquities away from himself, they shall be his utter ruin—either by his lingering delight in the objects he loved until then, or by his despair of pardon when he sees their enormity and their number. “Evils shall catch the unjust man unto destruction” (Ps. 140:12). St. Bernard says that at death the sinner shall see himself seized and bound by his very own sins, which shall say to him: “We are your works; we will not desert you.” We are your own offspring; we will never leave you; we will accompany you to judgment, and we will be your companions for all eternity in hell.
Second Point.—The dying sinner shall be tortured by the assaults of the devils.
5. “The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12). At death the devil exerts all his power not to let the soul that is about to leave this life escape his hands; for he sees from the circumstances of the disease that little time remains to win her for eternity. The Council of Trent teaches that Jesus Christ has left us the sacrament of Extreme Unction as a most firm defense against the temptations the devil sends us at the hour of death. Extremae Unctionis sacramento finem vitae tanquam firmissimo quodam praesidio munivit—“He fortified the end of life with the sacrament of Extreme Unction as with a most firm defense.”
And the holy council adds that at no other time does the enemy fight so violently to make us perish and to make us despair of the divine mercy as at the end of our life. Nullum tempus est, quo vehementius ille omnes suae versutiae nervos intendat ad perdendos nos penitus, et a fiducia, etiam, si possit, divinae misericordiae deturbandos, quam cum impendere nobis exitum vitae perspicet—“There is no time when he more vehemently strains all the sinews of his cunning to utterly destroy us, and to cast us down, if possible, even from trust in divine mercy, than when he sees the end of life hanging over us” (Council of Trent, Session 14, ch. 9).
6. Oh, how terrible are the assaults and snares the devil contrives against the souls of poor dying persons, even of those who have led a holy life! This was the testimony of the holy king Eleazar, after he recovered from a most severe illness: the temptations the devil sends at the hour of death, he said, can be understood only by one who has felt them. We read in the life of St. Andrew Avellino that in his agony he had so fierce a combat with hell that all the religious assisting him were seized with trembling. They saw that, from the agitation, his face swelled and turned black, all his limbs trembled, and a flood of tears poured from his eyes. All wept for compassion, and were filled with dread to see a saint die in such a manner. But they were afterward consoled when they saw that, as soon as an image of most holy Mary was held before him, the saint grew perfectly calm and, full of joy, breathed forth his blessed soul.
7. Now if this happens to the saints, what shall become of those poor sinners who have lived in sin until death? At that moment the tempting devil does not come alone to tempt them in a thousand ways and bring them to eternal ruin, but he calls companions to his aid. “Their house shall be filled with serpents” (Isa. 13:21). When a man is about to die, his house is filled with devils, who join forces to destroy him. “All her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits” (Lam. 1:3). All these enemies shall close in upon him in the straits of death.
One will say to him: Be not afraid; you shall not die of this illness! Another will say: How can this be? For so many years you have been deaf to the calls of God, and now will God choose to save you? Another: But how can you now repair those frauds, those injuries you have done, that good name you have stolen from your neighbor? Another: What hope is there for you? Do you not see that all the confessions you have made were null, made without true sorrow and without true purpose of amendment? How can you make them over again now, with a heart you feel to be so hard? Do you not see that you are damned? And in the midst of these straits and these assaults of despair, the poor dying sinner, troubled and confused, must pass into eternity. “The people shall be troubled—and they shall pass” (Job 34:20).
Third Point.—The dying sinner shall be tortured by the fears of eternal death.
8. Wretched the sick man who takes to his bed in mortal sin! He who lives in sin until death shall die in sin. “You shall die in your sin” (John 8:21). It is true that, in whatever hour the sinner is converted, God promises to pardon him; but to no sinner has God promised that he will grant him conversion at the hour of death. “Seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isa. 55:6). There is, then, a time for some sinners when they shall seek God and shall not find him. “You shall seek me, and shall not find me” (John 7:34).
The wretched will go to confession at the hour of death; they will promise, and weep, and beg mercy of God, but without knowing what they do. It is the same as would happen to a man who saw himself under the feet of his enemy, with a dagger held to his throat ready to cut it: he would weep, beg pardon, and promise to serve his enemy as a slave all his life long. But will the enemy believe him? No; he will be sure that these are all false words spoken only to escape his hands, and that afterward, were he pardoned, the man would be a worse enemy than before. In just the same way, when God sees that all the dying sinner’s acts of sorrow and all his promises come not from the heart but from the dread of death and of approaching damnation, how can he pardon him?
9. In the recommendation of the departing soul, the priest at the foot of the bed prays to the Lord and says: “Recognize, O Lord, thy creature.” But God answers: I know that he is my creature; but he has not esteemed me as his Creator—he has treated me as an enemy. The priest goes on with his prayer and says: “Remember not his past iniquities.” And God replies: I would pardon all the old sins of his early years; but he has gone on despising me until now, this very hour of his death. “They have turned their back upon me, and not their face: and, in the time of affliction, they will say: Arise, and deliver us. Where are the gods which thou hast made thee? let them rise and deliver thee” (Jer. 2:27, 28).
You, says God, have kept your back turned upon me until your death, and now you want me to deliver you from the chastisement? Call upon your own gods—those creatures, those riches, those friends you loved more than me; call upon them now to come and help you and deliver you from the hell that awaits you. It now justly falls to me to take vengeance for the offenses you have done me. You have despised the threats I made against obstinate sinners, and have paid them no heed. “Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide” (Deut. 32:35). The time of my vengeance has now come; it is just that it be carried out.
This is exactly what happened to a certain man of Madrid (as Father Charles Bovio relates), who led a wicked life, but who, on the unhappy death of one of his companions, made his confession and resolved besides to enter a strict religious order. But because he at once neglected to carry out his resolution, he returned to his former life. Reduced to poverty, he wandered the world as a vagabond and came to Lima, where, falling ill, he sent from the hospital that took him in to call for a confessor, and promised once again to change his life and enter religion. But once he had recovered, he took up his wicked life again; and behold, the vengeance of God came upon him. One day this confessor, who was a missionary, while crossing a mountain, heard a cry that seemed the howling of a wild beast. He drew near to it and saw a dying man, half rotted away, howling thus in despair; and he began to speak words of comfort to him. But the man, opening his eyes, recognized him and said: And so you too have come here, to be a witness of the justice of God? Know that I am that sick man whom you confessed in the hospital at Lima. I promised to change my life, but then I did not do so; and now I die in despair. And so the wretched man, amid these acts of despair, breathed forth his unhappy soul. (These facts are related by Father Charles Bovio, part 3, example 9.)
10. Let us conclude the discourse. Tell me, brethren: if a person in sin were struck by an apoplexy that robbed him of his senses, what pity it would stir in you to see him die in such a state, without the sacraments and without any sign of repentance! And yet, is he not a fool who, having time to be reconciled with God, goes on in sin, or returns to his sins, and so puts himself in danger of dying suddenly and dying in sin? “At what hour you think not,” Jesus Christ warns us, “the Son of Man will come” (Luke 12:40). A sudden death, which has befallen so many, may also befall each one of us.
And we must understand that all the deaths that befall men of evil life are sudden deaths, even though the illness may grant some space of time; for the days of that mortal illness are days of darkness, days of confusion, in which it is difficult, indeed morally impossible, to set in order a conscience defiled with many sins. Tell me, my brother: if you found yourself now at the point of death, given over by the physicians and already reduced to your last agony, how greatly would you long for another month, or another week, to settle the accounts you must render to God! And God gives you this time even now; he calls you and makes you see the danger of damnation in which you stand.
Give yourself to God at once. What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for God himself to send you to hell? “Walk whilst you have light” (John 12:35). Make good use of this light and this time that God now gives you, and set things right while you can; for a time shall come when you will no longer be able to set anything right.
[I beg my reader to read Sermon 48, which falls on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, on the practical death—that is, on what practically happens at the death of a man of the world. I testify from experience that wherever I have preached that sermon, although it is stripped of Latin texts, it has nonetheless made a great impression and left the audience terrified. Practical things make far more impression than speculative ones.]
Points for Reflection
1. “Give yourself to God at once. What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for God himself to send you to hell?” (§10)
2. “Make good use of this light and this time that God now gives you, and set things right while you can; for a time shall come when you will no longer be able to set anything right” (§10)
3. “Is he not a fool who, having time to be reconciled with God, goes on in sin, or returns to his sins, and so puts himself in danger of dying suddenly and dying in sin?” (§10)