Where Are the Nine?

Catholics are taught at an early age to be grateful for being made spiritually whole in the Baptismal font and thus to be incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ that is the Catholic Church.

We were spiritual lepers before we were baptized, which is why we must always give thanks to Our Lord for having the privilege of being Catholic and for being restored once again to clean spiritual health if we should fall into the vile leprosy known as Mortal Sin. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ underwent His fearful Passion and Death on Good Friday to lead us to the glories of the empty tomb—and from there to the unending bliss of an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise to be in the beatific presence of the Most Blessed Trinity for all eternity.

We must be ever grateful for the fact that Our Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, condescended to become Incarnate in His Most Blessed Mother’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation and then spent nine months within the sanctuary of Our Lady’s blessed womb so as to deny Himself nothing of human experience except for sin.

The very Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, the Logos. The Word through Whom all things were made, became a helpless preborn infant Who was then born in poverty and anonymity in cave in Bethlehem where barn animals were stabled and then was the victim of our own sins, having transcended time, on Good Friday as we condemned Him to death, mocked and reviled Him, scourged Him at the pillar, crowned Him with thorns and then hammered that Crown deep into His skull, nailed Him to the wood of the Holy Cross to taunt and mock Him as He suffered within His Sacred Humanity the very antithesis of His Sacred Divinity, sin, to atone for our sins and to make it possible for us to go to Heaven if we persist in a state of Sanctifying Grace by the graces He won for us while shedding every single drop of His Most Precious Blood and that He sends to us through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Grace.

Yet it is that baptized Catholics, whose immortal souls have been purchased at the price of Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood, fall into such states of lukewarmness that they never think about First and Last Things and thus develop hearts that are utterly indifferent to the great gift of the Holy Faith that they had received in the Baptismal even though Our Lord Himself how He views the lukewarm:

16 But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth  17 Because thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.  18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.  19 Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance.  20 Behold, 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, and will sup with him, and he with me.

21 To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with me in my throne: as I also have overcome, and am set down with my Father in his throne.  22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. (Apocalypse 3: 16-22.)

Spiritual lukewarmness leads to becoming so immersed in the world that they do not think about the simple fact that the soul is the animating principle of the human body and that that soul is going to be judged by Christ the King at the moment of death.

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri sermonized about the death of the worldly man who has fallen into sin, including the sin of being ungrateful to God for the Holy Faith, the man who has forgotten about the Holy Faith and that he has an obligation live as God has revealed and not as He pleases and to give thanks at all times for the fact that he is a Catholic because Our Lord took upon Himself the guilt of our sins and thus wants us to give Him our love freely in return for such an unmerited gift (see Appendix A for Saint Alphonsus’ sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost on what happens to the men of this world when they die).

This all comes to mind as almost no one I encounter when checking out at various establishments knows anything about Easter other than perhaps about Easter eggs and bunnies.

Most of these good, hard-working people, many of them very young, know nothing about the events of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, Nativity, Hidden Years, Public Ministry, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and I mean that they know nothing at all.

Sadly, however, and largely because of the conciliar revolution, many older baptized Catholics within the conciliar structures, most of whom do not even bother to show up at their local parish for the weekend hootenanny, are as clueless about the meaning of Easter and what great a price our salvation was won for us as are today’s young “nones.”

Many such Catholics are also completely ignorant about the feasts of the annual Easter cycle (the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven forty days after His Resurrection from the dead and Pentecost Sunday) and about such Holy Days of Obligation as Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception and her Assumption into Heaven because they live as worldlings to whom the liturgical year is an entirely foreign concept to them.

As has been noted before on this website, this situation is not helped by the fact that one of the leading progenitors of the conciliar revolution, the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, said twenty-five years ago that he had “no problem” with those Catholics who only go to church several times a year:

I have nothing against people who, though they never enter a church during the year, go to Christmas midnight Mass, or go on the occasion of some other celebration, because this is also a way of coming close to the light. Therefore, there must be different forms of involvement and participation. (CARDINAL RATZINGER ON THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY). 

Ratzinger's lack of regard for the Third Commandment was but a logical consequence for the lack of regard that he had for the First and Second Commandments as he had, as Benedict XVI, personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions with his priestly hands and has said that "Christians and Jews pray to the same Lord" and has called mosques and synagogues and even a mountain in Japan, Mount Hiei, atop which the Buddhists worship their devils as "sacred" places.

One who can so flagrantly violate the First and Second Commandments with such utter impunity demonstrates in the objective order of things, leaving aside subjective culpability solely to God Himself, Who alone knows the interior dispositions of souls, that he does not understand Who God is or what He has revealed to us through His true Church. This lack of understanding of the identity of God flowed logically from Ratzinger/Benedict's lack of understanding of the nature of God and His Revelation, believing that the expressions of dogmatic truth are contingent on the historical circumstances in which they were formulated. One who gets such basic things wrong is not going to have much of a real sense of the horror of personal sin and how to respond to it appropriately, something that the deceased “new theologian” had very much in common with his much more vulgar, venal, and profane successor in the conciliar seat of apostasy.

It is then very logical that many older Catholics who were learned the Holy Faith from the Baltimore Catechism and who were baptized by true priests in the traditional rite and confirmed by true bishops are as sanguine about absenting themselves from what purports to be Holy Mass as was the supposed “pope of tradition.” One loses much of the sensus Catholicus once one so accustoms to the world and its cycles and thus treats Sundays nothing other than “days of rest,” even from the Sunday obligation under pain of Mortal Sin to attend Holy Mass.

Starting with Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, the false "popes" have dared to tamper with the Third Commandment by permitting Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to satisfy their Sunday obligation by attending a staging of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo service on Saturday afternoon or evening and to attend such a staging on the afternoon or evening liturgical before one of the few Holy Days of Obligation that have not been moved or whose obligation has not been eliminated as a result of a certain feast falling on a Monday or a Saturday. This has contributed mightily to the descralizing of Sundays as observant Catholics of all ages within the conciliar sect can get their "obligation" out of the way on Saturday afternoons or evenings in order to have Sundays "free" for the "really important" things in life (football, baseball, golf, boating, sleeping in, watching the Sunday morning and afternoon interview programs, etc.) and it has contributed to so many Catholics just giving up on such obligations altogether to live as de facto baptized pagans.

Nonetheless, however, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ still suffered and died for the fallen away as He did for Catholics who remain faithful to their obligations and who take seriously Lenten penances all the while maintaining a fervent love for His Most Blessed Mother, especially through her Most Holy Rosary.

Our situation today is analogous to the fact that only one of the ten lepers whom Our Lord had healed of their leprosy had enough gratitude in his heart to retrace his steps to thank Him for having made his body and soul whole again.

We cannot be like the nine lepers who did not return to give thanks to Him after He had healed them of their leprosy as we read in the Gospel that is read annually at Holy Mass on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, which occur this year on Sunday, August 23, 2026:

And it came to pass, as he was going to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.  12 And as he entered into a certain town, there met him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off;  13 And lifted up their voice, saying: Jesus, master, have mercy on us.  14 Whom when he saw, he said: Go, shew yourselves to the priests. And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean.  15 And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God.

16 And he fell on his face before his feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan.  17 And Jesus answering, said, Were not ten made clean? and where are the nine?  18 There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger.  19 And he said to him: Arise, go thy way; for thy faith hath made thee whole.  (Luke 17: 11-19.)

We must imitate the Samaritan, the stranger, who returned thanks, and never take our Catholic Faith nor our salvation, which can be lost with just one Mortal Sin, for granted.

We must pray to Our Lady through her Most Holy Rosary to avoid company with men who desire to spread the foul leprosy of their sins to us as it is far easier for bad company to corrupt a person striving for holiness than it is for a person striving for holiness to convert those steeped in their souls. A promiscuous association with unrepentant sinners can lead those who care more about human respect to be indifferent about sin in the lives of others and to even come to make excuses for their sins. This has always been one of the chief dangers of Catholics living here in the pluralistic United States of America.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided a wonderful exegesis on today’s Gospel in The Liturgical Year. Here is an excerpt (the entire reflection is found in Appendix A, below):

Let us now resume the literal explanation of our Gospel. As we were observing on a previous Sunday, our Jesus here again wishes rather to give us a useful teaching than to manifest his divine power. It is for this purpose that he does not cure these ten lepers who besought him to have mercy on them, as on another occasion he cured one who was suffering from the same misery. To this latter, who besought Him, he restored cleanliness by a few words: this was at the beginning of his public life; he said: “Be thou made clean!” and forthwith the leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:3) But the lepers of our Gospel is an event that took place in the latter portion of our Lord’s sojourn amongst men: and they are made clean only while on their way to show themselves to the priests; Jesus sends them to the priests, just as he had done in the previous case; and thus from the beginning to the close of his mortal life, he gives an example of the respect which was to be paid to the Old Law, so long as it was not abrogated. That Law gave to the sons of Aaron the power not of curing, but of discerning leprosy, and passing judgment on its being cured or not. (Leviticus 13)

The time, however, is now come for a Law that is to be far above that of Sinai; and it has a priesthood, whose judgments are not to be concerning the state of the body, but by pronouncing the sentence of absolution, is to effectually remove the leprosy of souls. The cure which the ten lepers felt coming upon them before they had reached the priests ought to have sufficed to show them, in Jesus, the power of the new priesthood, which had been foretold by the Prophets; (Isaiah 66:21-23) the power which, by thus forestalling it in their favor, surpasses the authority of the ancient ministration is, or should be, evidence enough of the superior dignity of Him who exercises it. If only they were in suitable dispositions for the sacred rites, which are going to be used in the ceremony of their purification (Leviticus 14:1-15) —the Holy Ghost, who heretofore had inspired the prophetic details of the mysterious function about to be celebrated, would enable them to understand the signification of the expiatory sparrow, whose blood, being sprinkled upon the living water, sets free, by the wood, its fellow sparrow. The first bird typifies our Lord Jesus Christ, who likens himself, in the psalm, to the lonely sparrow; (Psalm 101:8) his immolation on the Cross, which gives to water the power of cleansing souls, communicates to the other sparrows, his Brethren, (Psalm 83:4) the purity of the Blood divine.

But the Jew is far from being ready for understanding these great mysteries. And yet the Law had been given to him, that it might serve as a hand leading him to Christ, and without exposing him to err. (Galatians 3:24) It was a signal favor, granted him, not from any merits of his own, but because of his Fathers. (Deuteronomy 4:37, 9:4-6) The favor was all the more precious, inasmuch as it was bestowed at a time when the tradition regarding a future Redeemer was almost entirely lost by the bulk of mankind. Gratitude should have been uppermost in the heart of Juda; but pride took its place. He was so taken up with the honor that had been put on him, that it made him lose all desire for the Messiah. He cannot endure the thought that a time will come when the Sun of Justice having risen for the whole earth, the limited advantage which was given to a few during the hours of night, shall be eclipsed by the bright noon of a light which all vie to enjoy. He therefore proclaims that the Old Law is definitive, though the Law protests itself to be but transitory; he therefore insists on the perpetuity of the reign of types and shadows. He lays it down as a dogma that no divine intervention can ever equal that made on Sinai; that every future prophet, every Sent of God, must be inferior to Moses; that all possible salvation is in the Law, and that from it alone flows every grace.

This explains to us how it was that of the ten men cured of the leprosy by Jesus, nine of them are found who have not even the remotest thought of coming to their Deliverer to thank him: these nine are Jews; Jesus, to their minds, is a mere disciple of Moses, a bare instrument of favors holding his commission from Sinai; and as soon as they have gone through the legal formality of their purification, they take it that all their obligations to God are paid. The Samaritan, the despises gentile whose sufferings have given him that humility which makes the sinner clear-sighted—he is the only one who recognizes God by his divine works and gives him thanks for his favors. How many ages of apparent abandonment, of humiliation and suffering, must pass over Juda too, before he will recognize and adore his God, and confess to him his sins, and give him his devoted love and, like this stranger, hear Jesus pronounce his pardon, and say: Arise! Go thy way! thy faith hath made thee whole and saved thee!  (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Pray to Our Lady every to be made clean frequently in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance so that, being absolved of our sins by a true priest, our prayers to her for the conversion of sinners will help to usher in the day when the Triumph of her own Immaculate Heart will be made manifest to the world so that those Catholics who persist in the leprosy of sin and the indifference to its dangers will rush to be cured by Our Lord in the Confessional and then to give Him thanks immediately thereafter and throughout the course of our daily lives.

The glories of this Easter season, for which we must ever be grateful, were explained over one hundred fifty years ago by the Abbot of Solesmes in The Liturgical Year:

Jesus had shown Himself to all His Apostles on the Sunday evening; He repeated His visit to them eight days after, as we shall see further on. The Gospel for today tells us of a third apparition, wherewith seven of the eleven were favored. It took place on the shore of Lake Genesareth, which, on account of its size, was called the Sea of Tiberias. The seven are delighted beyond measure at seeing their divine Master; He treats them with affectionate familiarity, and provides them with a repast. John is the first to recognize Jesus; nor can we be surprised: his purity gives keen perception to the eye of his soul, as it is written: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8) Peter throws himself from the ship, that he may the more quickly reach his Lord. His natural impetuosity shows itself here as on so many other occasions; but in this impetuosity we see that he loved Jesus more than his fellow disciples did. But let us attentively consider the other mysteries of our Gospel.

The seven disciples are fishing: it is the Church working out her apostolate. Peter is the master fisherman; it belongs to him to decide when and where the nets are to be thrown. The other six Apostles unite with him in the work, and Jesus is with them all, looking upon their labor and directing it, for whatever is got by it is all for Him. The fish are the faithful, for, as we have already had occasion to remark, the Christian was often called by this name in the early ages. It was the font, it was water, that gave him his Christian life. Yesterday, we were considering how the Israelites owed their safety to the waters of the Red Sea; and our Gospel for today speaks of a Passover, a passing from Genesareth’s waters to a banquet prepared by Jesus. There is a mystery, too, in the number of the fishes that are taken; but what it is that is signified by these hundred and fifty-three, we shall perhaps never know, until the day of Judgment reveals the secret. They probably denote some divisions or portions of the human race that are to be gradually led, by the apostolate of the Church, to the Gospel of Christ: but once more, till God’s time comes, the book must remain sealed.

Having reached the shore, the Apostles surround their beloved Master, and lo! He has prepared them a repast: bread, and a fish lying on hot coals. This fish is not one of those they themselves have caught; they are to partake of it, now that they have come from the water. The early Christians thus interpret the mystery: the fish represents Christ, who was made to suffer the cruel torments of the Passion, and whose love of us was the fire that consumed Him; and He became the divine food of them that are regenerated by water. We have elsewhere remarked that in the primitive Church, the Greek word for fish (Ichthys) was venerated as a sacred symbol, inasmuch as the letters of this word formed the initials of the titles of our Redeemer.

But Jesus would unite, in the same repast, both the divine Fish, which is Himself, and those other fishes, which represent all mankind, and have been drawn out of the water in Peter’s net. The Paschal Feast has the power to effect, by love, an intimate and substantial union between the Food and the guests, between the Lamb of God and the other lambs who are His brethren, between the divine Fish and those others that He has associated with Himself by the closest ties of fellowship. They, like Him, have been offered in sacrifice; they follow Him in suffering and in glory. Witness the great deacon Laurence, around whose tomb the faithful are now assembled. He was made like to his divine Master, when he was burned to death on his red-hot gridiron; he is now sharing with Him, in an eternal Pasch, the glories of Jesus’ victory, and the joys of His infinite happiness.

The Offertory is formed from the words of the Psalm, which commemorate the manna that heaven gave to the Israelites, after they had passed through the Red Sea. But the new Manna is as far superior to the old, which nourished only the body, as our baptismal font, which washes away our sins, is grander than the mighty waves, which swallowed up Pharaoh and his army. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Wednesday in Easter Week.)

Pray to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, to be made clean frequently in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance so that, being absolved of our sins by a true priest, our prayers to her for the conversion of sinners will help to usher in the day when the Triumph of her own Immaculate Heart will be made manifest to the world so that even those Catholics who persist in the leprosy of sin and the indifference to its dangers will rush to be cured by Our Lord in the Confessional and then to give Him thanks immediately thereafter and throughout the course of their  daily lives.

This is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad therin!

Alleluia!

Christ is Risen!

Alleluia.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, pray for us.

Appendix A

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s Reflection on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Samaritan Leper, cured of that hideous malady which is an apt figure of sin, in company with nine lepers of Jewish nationality, represents the despised race of Gentiles, who were at first admitted, by stealth, so to say, and by extraordinary privilege, into a share of the graces belonging to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:24) The conduct of these ten men, on occasion of their miraculous cure, is in keeping with the attitude assumed by the two people they typify, regarding the salvation offered to the world by the Son of God. It is a fresh demonstration of what the Apostle says: All are not Israelites that are of Israel; neither are all they who are the seed of Abraham, children; “but,” says the Scripture, “in Isaac shall thy seed be called,” (Genesis 21:12) that is to say, not they who are the children of the flesh, are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promises are counted for the seed; they are born of the faith of Abraham and are, in the eyes of the Lord, his true progeny. (Romans 9:8)

Our holy Mother the Church is never tired of this subject, the comparison of the Two Testaments, and the contrast here is between the two people. We deem it our duty, before proceeding further, to explain how this is, for there are many persons who cannot understand what benefit can come to us Christians from hearing this subject preached to us. The kind of spirituality which, with many of us, has nowadays been substituted for the liturgical life so thoroughly lived in, and so precious to our Catholic ancestors, gives a certain disrelish for the ideas which the Church so perseveringly brings before them during so many of her Sundays. They have become habituated to live in an atmosphere of very limited truth; it is all subjective, as well as little; and they consider it a very excellent thing to forget all other teaching, except what they happen to possess, and beyond which it is a trouble to go. With Christians of this class, it is not surprising that they feel puzzled at finding the Church continually urging them to take an interest in a long past, which they call of no practical utility to them! But the interior life, truly worthy of the name, is not what these good people imagine. No school of spirituality, either now or ever, made the ideal of virtue consist in indifference for those great historic facts which are evidently so precious in the eyes of the Church and of God himself. And what is the usual result of this isolating themselves from their Mother’s most cherished appreciations? It is that by this determined shutting themselves up in their own private prayers, they, by a just punishment, lose sight of the true end of prayer, which is union with and love of God. Their meditation is deprived of that element of intimate and fruitful converse with God, which is assigned it by all the masters of the spiritual life; it soon becomes an unproductive exercise of analysis and reasoning, in which there is nothing but abstract conclusions.

Now, when God mercifully invited men to the divine nuptials by manifesting to them his Word, it was not by abstraction that he gave to our earth this the Son of his own eternal Substance. As to his divinity, men could not, in their present state, see it in a direct way. Had then God shown us, in this pretended abstract way, that eternal Son of his, in whom are found all beauty and warmth and life—it would have been imperfect and cold. This he did not do; but as St. Paul tells us, he manifested, he shewed, the great mystery of godliness in the Flesh; (1 Timothy 3:16) the Word became a living soul; (Genesis 2:7) eternal Truth assumed to himself a Body, that so he might converse with men; (Baruch 3:38) and grow up like one of themselves. (Luke 2:52) And when that Body, which eternal Truth was to hold as his own forever, was taken up in glory, (1 Timothy 3:16)—the Church, the Bride of this Man-God, the bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh, (Ephesians 5:30-32) continued in the world this manifestation of God, by the member of Christ; she continued that historic development (Ephesians 1:23) of the Word, which is only to cease when time is no more. This manifestation, this development, surpasses all human calculations and reveals fresh aspects of the Wisdom of God even to the Angels themselves. (Ephesians 3:10) Undoubtedly, a real regard is to be had for those axioms to which great minds have reduced the principles of science in an abstract logical order, quite independently of history and facts: but neither with God nor with man has this sort of petrified theorizing anything in it of the life, the influence, the activity of substantial truth. In the Church, as in God, truth is life and light; (John 1:4) her grand Credo would never ring so triumphantly as it does through our churches, it would never make its way so irresistibly up to heaven, if it were but a bare series of true definitions and phrases: its superhuman power comes from each of its articles, almost each of its words, teeming with the blood of martyrs upon it, and radiant, for the Church and for God, with the splendor of toils and sufferings and combats of thousands of sainted Confessors and Doctors, the very aristocracy, that is, of human nature ennobled by Baptism, whose living is to be the completing the Body of Christ here below. (Colossians 1:24, 2:19)

The subject is too full to be treated of here; but this much is irresistible—that after the master-fact of the Incarnation of the Word, who came upon our earth to manifest God, through the ages of time, by Christ and his members, (2 Corinthians 4:10-11) there is not one which is more important, not one which has been and still is so dear to God, as the vocation of the two people that were successively called by Him to the blessing of an alliance with him. The gifts and vocations of God are, as the Apostle expresses it without repentance, or regret, on his part. Those Jews, who are now his enemies because they reject the Gospel, are still called charissimi, they are still the beloved and dearly beloved, because of their Fathers. (Romans 11:28-29) For the same reason, a time will come and the whole world is waiting for it, when the denial of Juda being revoked and his iniquities blotted out, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will be literally fulfilled. (Romans 11:25-27) The divine unity of the two Testaments will be made evident; and the two peoples themselves will be made one under their one head Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14) The covenant of God with man being then fully realized, such as he had designed it in his eternal wisdom—the earth having yielded its fruit (Psalm 66:7) —the world having done its work—the sepulchers will give back their dead, (Romans 11:15) and History cease here on earth, leaving glorified human nature to bloom in unreserved fullness of life, under God’s complacent eye.

The truths, then, which are again brought before our notice by today’s Gospel, are anything but dry or old-fashioned; nothing is so grand; and we must add, though superficial minds will wonder at it—there is nothing more practical in this season of the year, for it is the season that is consecrated to the mysteries of the Unitive Life. After all, in what, primarily, does union between God and man consist, but in unanimity of the divine and human minds? Now, we know that the divine mind has manifested all its designs in the respective history of the two Testaments and the two Peoples; and that the final result, which is to bring these two histories to their close, is the one only end which infinite Love was in the beginning and it now, and will forever be, proposing to fulfill. The Church, therefore, far from showing herself to be not up to the present age by recurring continually to truths such as these, is but clearly proving herself to be the most intelligent Bride of Jesus—is but evincing the changeless lovely youthfulness of a heart which ever beats in unison with that of her Spouse.

Let us now resume the literal explanation of our Gospel. As we were observing on a previous Sunday, our Jesus here again wishes rather to give us a useful teaching than to manifest his divine power. It is for this purpose that he does not cure these ten lepers who besought him to have mercy on them, as on another occasion he cured one who was suffering from the same misery. To this latter, who besought Him, he restored cleanliness by a few words: this was at the beginning of his public life; he said: “Be thou made clean!” and forthwith the leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:3) But the lepers of our Gospel is an event that took place in the latter portion of our Lord’s sojourn amongst men: and they are made clean only while on their way to show themselves to the priests; Jesus sends them to the priests, just as he had done in the previous case; and thus from the beginning to the close of his mortal life, he gives an example of the respect which was to be paid to the Old Law, so long as it was not abrogated. That Law gave to the sons of Aaron the power not of curing, but of discerning leprosy, and passing judgment on its being cured or not. (Leviticus 13)

The time, however, is now come for a Law that is to be far above that of Sinai; and it has a priesthood, whose judgments are not to be concerning the state of the body, but by pronouncing the sentence of absolution, is to effectually remove the leprosy of souls. The cure which the ten lepers felt coming upon them before they had reached the priests ought to have sufficed to show them, in Jesus, the power of the new priesthood, which had been foretold by the Prophets; (Isaiah 66:21-23) the power which, by thus forestalling it in their favor, surpasses the authority of the ancient ministration is, or should be, evidence enough of the superior dignity of Him who exercises it. If only they were in suitable dispositions for the sacred rites, which are going to be used in the ceremony of their purification (Leviticus 14:1-15) —the Holy Ghost, who heretofore had inspired the prophetic details of the mysterious function about to be celebrated, would enable them to understand the signification of the expiatory sparrow, whose blood, being sprinkled upon the living water, sets free, by the wood, its fellow sparrow. The first bird typifies our Lord Jesus Christ, who likens himself, in the psalm, to the lonely sparrow; (Psalm 101:8) his immolation on the Cross, which gives to water the power of cleansing souls, communicates to the other sparrows, his Brethren, (Psalm 83:4) the purity of the Blood divine.

But the Jew is far from being ready for understanding these great mysteries. And yet the Law had been given to him, that it might serve as a hand leading him to Christ, and without exposing him to err. (Galatians 3:24) It was a signal favor, granted him, not from any merits of his own, but because of his Fathers. (Deuteronomy 4:37, 9:4-6) The favor was all the more precious, inasmuch as it was bestowed at a time when the tradition regarding a future Redeemer was almost entirely lost by the bulk of mankind. Gratitude should have been uppermost in the heart of Juda; but pride took its place. He was so taken up with the honor that had been put on him, that it made him lose all desire for the Messiah. He cannot endure the thought that a time will come when the Sun of Justice having risen for the whole earth, the limited advantage which was given to a few during the hours of night, shall be eclipsed by the bright noon of a light which all vie to enjoy. He therefore proclaims that the Old Law is definitive, though the Law protests itself to be but transitory; he therefore insists on the perpetuity of the reign of types and shadows. He lays it down as a dogma that no divine intervention can ever equal that made on Sinai; that every future prophet, every Sent of God, must be inferior to Moses; that all possible salvation is in the Law, and that from it alone flows every grace.

This explains to us how it was that of the ten men cured of the leprosy by Jesus, nine of them are found who have not even the remotest thought of coming to their Deliverer to thank him: these nine are Jews; Jesus, to their minds, is a mere disciple of Moses, a bare instrument of favors holding his commission from Sinai; and as soon as they have gone through the legal formality of their purification, they take it that all their obligations to God are paid. The Samaritan, the despises gentile whose sufferings have given him that humility which makes the sinner clear-sighted—he is the only one who recognizes God by his divine works and gives him thanks for his favors. How many ages of apparent abandonment, of humiliation and suffering, must pass over Juda too, before he will recognize and adore his God, and confess to him his sins, and give him his devoted love and, like this stranger, hear Jesus pronounce his pardon, and say: Arise! Go thy way! thy faith hath made thee whole and saved thee! (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Appendix B

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri’s Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

“Behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother.” Luke 7:12.

It is related in this day’s gospel that, going to the city of Naim, Jesus Christ met a dead man, the only son of his mother, who was carried out to be buried. “Behold, a dead man was carried out.” Before we proceed further, let us stop at these words and remember death. The holy Church directs her ministers to say to Christians every year , on Ash Wednesday, “Memento homo quia pulvis es, et in pulverum reverteris.” Remember man, you art but dust, and into dust you shall return. Oh! would to God that men had death always before their eyes; if they had, they certainly should not lead such bad lives. Now, beloved brethren, that the remembrance of death may be impressed upon you, I will this day place before your eyes the practical death, or a description of what ordinarily happens at the death of men of the world, and of all the circumstances attending it. Hence, we shall consider, in the first point, what happens at the time of the last illness, in the second point, what happens when the last sacraments are received; and, in the third, what happens at the time of death.

First Point. What happens at the time of the last illness.

1. I do not intend in this discourse to speak of a sinner who had always lived in habitual sin; but of a worldling, who is careless about his salvation, and always entangled in the affairs of the world, in contracts, enmities, courtships, and gaming. He has frequently fallen into mortal sins, and after a considerable time has confessed them. In a word, he has been a relapsing sinner, and has generally lived in enmity with God, or, at least, has been generally perplexed with grievous doubts of conscience. Let us consider the death of such persons, and what ordinarily happens at their death.

2. Let us commence at the time at which his last illness appears. He rises in the morning, he goes out to look after his temporal affairs; but while he is engaged in business, he is assailed by a violent pain in the head, his legs totter, he feels a cold shivering, which runs through every member, a sickness of the stomach, and great debility over the whole body. He immediately returns home and throws himself on the bed. His relatives, his wife and sisters, run to him, and say, “Why have you retired so early? Are you unwell?” He answers, “I feel sick. I am scarcely able to stand; I have a great head-ache.” “Perhaps” they say, “you have got a fever.” “It must be so,” he replies, “send for a physician. “ The physician is immediately sent for. In the meantime the sick man is put to bed, and there he is seized with a cold fit, which makes him shiver from head to foot. He is loaded with covering, but the cold continues for an hour or two, and is succeeded by a burning heat. The physician arrives, asks the sick man how he feels; he examines the pulse, and find he has a severe attack of fever. But, not to alarm him, the physician says, You have fever, but it is trifling. Have you given any occasion to it? The sick man replies, I went out by night a few days ago, and caught cold; or, I dined with a friend, and indulged my appetite to excess. It is worth nothing, the physician says, it is a fullness of stomach, or more probably one of these attacks which occur at the change of season. Eat nothing to-day, take a cup of tea; be not uneasy; be cheerful; there is no danger. I will see you tomorrow. Oh! that there was an angel, who, on the part of God, would say to the physician, What do you say? Do you tell me that there is no danger in this disease? Ah! the trumpet of the divine justice has, by the first symptoms of his illness, given the signal of the death of this man, for him the time of God’s vengeance has already arrived.

3. The night comes, and the poor invalid gets no rest. The difficulty of breathing and headache increase. The night appears to him a thousand years. The light scarcely dawns when he calls for some of the family. His relatives come, and say to him, Have you rested well? Ah!  I have not been able to close my eyes during the entire night. O God! how much do I feel oppressed! Oh! how violent are the spasms in my head! I feel my temples pierced by two nails. Send immediately for the physician; tell him to come as soon as possible. The physician comes, and finds the fever increased; but still he continues to say, “Have courage; there is no danger. The disease must take its course. The fever which accompanies it will make it disappear.” He comes the third day, and finds the sick man worse. He comes on the fourth day, and symptoms of malignant fever appear. The taste on the mouth is disagreeable; the tongue is black; every part of the body is restless; and delirium has commenced. The physician, finding that the fever is acute, prescribes purging, bloodletting, and iced water. He says to the relatives, Ah! the sickness is most severe; I do not wish to be alone. Let other physicians be called in, that we may have a consultation. This he says in secret to the relatives, but not to the sick man on the contrary, not to frighten him, he continues to say, “Be cheerful; there is no danger.”

4. Thus, they speak of remedies, of more physicians, and of a consultation; but not a word about confession or the last sacraments. I know not how such physicians can be saved. Where the Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth is in force, they expressly swear, when they receive the diploma, that, after the third day of his illness, they will pay no more visits to any sick man until he has made his confession. But some physicians do not observe this oath, and thus so many poor souls are damned. For, when a sick man has lost his reason, of what use is confession to him? He is lost. Brethren, when you fall sick, do not wait till the physician tells you to send for a confessor; send for him of your own accord; for physicians, through fear of displeasing a patient, do not warn him of his danger until they despair, or nearly despair of his recovery. Thus, brethren, send first for your confessor call first for the physician of the soul, and afterwards for the physician of the body. Your soul is at stake, eternity is at stake; if you err then you have erred forever; your mistake shall be forever irreparable.

5. The physician, then, conceals from the sick man his danger; his relatives do what is still worse they deceive him by lies. They tell him that he is better, and that the physicians give strong hopes of his recovery. treacherous relatives! barbarous relatives, who are the worst of enemies! Instead of warning the sick man of his danger (as is their duty, particularly if they are parents, children, or brothers)., that he may settle the accounts of his soul, they flatter him, they deceive him, and cause him to die in the state of damnation. But, from the pains, oppression, and restlessness which he feels, from the studied silence of friends who visit him, and from the tears which he sees in the eyes of his relatives, the poor invalid perceives that his disease is mortal. Alas! he says, the hour of death is come; but, through fear of giving me annoyance, they do not warn me of it.

6. No; his relatives do not let him know that he is in danger of death; but because they attend to their own interest, about which they are more solicitous than they are about anything else, they bring in a scrivener, in the hope that the dying man will leave them a large portion of his property. The scrivener arrives. Who is this? asks the sick man. The relatives answer, He is a scrivener. Perhaps, for your own satisfaction, you would like to make your will. Then is my sickness mortal? Am I near my end? No, father, or brother, they say, we know that there is no necessity for making a will; but you must one day make it, and it would be better to do it now, while you have the full use of all your faculties. Very well, he replies; since the scrivener is come, and since you wish me to do it, I will make my last will. The scrivener first asks the sick man in what church he wishes to be buried, in case he should die. Oh! what a painful question! After choosing the place of his interment, he begins to dispose of all his goods. I bequeath such an estate or farm to my children; such a house to my brother; such a sum of money to a friend; and such an article of furniture to an acquaintance. O miserable man, what have you done? You have submitted to so much fatigue, you have burdened your conscience with so many sins, in order to acquire these goods; and now you leave them forever, and bequeath them to such and such persons. But there is no remedy; when death comes we must leave all things. This separation from all worldly possessions is very painful to the sick man, whose heart was attached to his property, his house, his garden, his money, and his amusements. Death comes, gives the stroke, and separates the heart from all the objects of its love. This stroke tortures the sick man with excruciating pain. Ah, brethren! let us detach our hearts from the things of this world before death separates us from them with so much pain, and with such great danger to our salvation.

Second Point. “What happens at the time in which the sacraments are received.

7. Behold! the dying man has made his will. After the eighth or tenth day of his illness, seeing that he is daily growing worse, and that he is near his end, one of his relatives asks, “When shall we send for his confessor? He has been a man of the world. We know that he has not been a saint.” They all agree that the confessor should be sent for; but all refuse to speak to the sick on the subject. Hence, they send for the parish priest, or for some other confessor, to make known to the dying man his danger, and the necessity of receiving the last sacraments. But this is done only when he has nearly lost the use of his faculties. The confessor comes; he inquires from the family about the state of the sick man, and the sort of life which he led. He finds that he has been careless about the duties of religion, and, from the circumstances which he hears, he trembles for the salvation of the poor soul. Understanding that the dying man has but a short time to live, the confessor, first of all, orders the relatives to leave the room, and to return to it no more. He then approaches and salutes the sick man. The latter asks, “Who are you? I am, replies the confessor, the parish priest, Father Such-a-one. Do you wish me to do anything for you? Having heard that you had a severe attack of illness, I have come to reconcile you with your Creator. Father, I am obliged to you; but I beg of you for the present to let me take a little rest; for I have got no sleep for several nights, and I am scarcely able to speak. Recommend me to God.

8. Knowing the dangerous state of the soul and body of the sick man, the confessor says, We hope that the Lord and the most holy Virgin will deliver you from this illness; but, sooner or later, you must die. Your illness is very severe. You would do well to make your confession, and to adjust the affairs of your soul. Perhaps you have scruples of conscience. I have come on purpose to calm the troubles of your mind. Father, I should have to make a long confession; for my conscience is perplexed and burdened with sin. At present I am not able to do it. I feel a lightness in my head, and I can scarcely breathe. Father, we will see about it to-morrow, at present I am not able. But who knows what may happen? Some attack may come on, which will not leave you time to make your confession. Father, do not torment me any longer. I have said that I am not able; it is impossible for me to do it.

But the confessor, who knows that there is no hope of recovery, feels himself obliged to speak more plainly, and says, I think it is my duty to inform you that your life is about to close. I entreat you to make your confession, for, perhaps, tomorrow you shall be dead. Why, father, do you say so? Because, replies the confessor, so the physicians have said. The poor dying man then begins to rage against the physicians, and against his friends. Ah! the traitors have deceived me. They knew my danger, and have not informed me of it. Ah! unhappy me! The confessor rejoins, and says, Be not alarmed at the difficulties of making your confession, it is enough to mention the most grievous sins which you remember. I will assist you. Be not afraid. Begin at once to tell your sins. The dying man forces himself to commence his confession; but his mind is all confusion; he knows not where to begin; he tries to tell his sins, but is not able to explain himself. He feels but little, and understands still less, what the confessor says to him. O God! At such a time, and in such a state, worldlings are obliged to attend to the most important of all affairs the affair of eternal salvation! The confessor hears, perhaps, many sins, bad habits, injuries done to the property and character of others, confessions made with little sorrow and with little purpose of amendment. He assists the dying man as well as he can, and, after a short exhortation, tells him to make an act of contrition. But, God grant that he may not be as insensible to sorrow as the sick man who was attended by Cardinal Bellarmine. When the Cardinal exhorted him to make an act of contrition, he said, Father, do not trouble yourself; these things are too high for me; I do not understand them. In the end, the confessor absolves the dying man; but who knows if God absolves him?

9. After giving him absolution, the confessor says, Prepare yourself, now, to receive Jesus Christ for your viaticum. It is now, replies the sick man, four or five hours after night; I will communicate in the morning. No, perhaps in the morning time shall be no more for you; you must at present receive the viaticum and extreme unction. Ah, unhappy me! the dying man says; am I then at the point of death? He has reason to say so; for the practice of some physicians is, to put off the viaticum till the patient is near his last, and till he has lost, or nearly lost, his senses. This is a common delusion. According to the common opinion of theologians, the viaticum ought always to be administered when there is danger of death. It would be useful here to observe, that Benedict the Fourteenth, in his fifty-third Bull (in Euchol. Grace., . 46, ap. Bullar, tom. 4)., says, that extreme unction may be given whenever the sick man “labors under a grievous illness.” Hence, whenever the sick can receive the viaticum, they can also receive the sacrament of extreme unction. It is not necessary to wait, as some physicians recommend, till they are near the agony, or till they lose their senses.

10. Behold! the viaticum arrives, the sick man hears the bell. Oh! how he trembles! The trembling and terror increase when he sees the priest coming into the room with the holy sacrament, and when he beholds around his bed the torches of those who assisted at the procession. The priest recites the words of the ritual, “Accipe frater viaticum corporis Domini nostri Jesu Christi qui te custodiat ab hoste maligno, et perducat in vitam æternum. Amen.” Brother, receive the viaticum of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may preserve you from the wicked enemy, and that he may bring you to eternal life. He receives the consecrated host upon his tongue, the priest then gives him a little water to enable him to swallow it; for his throat is dry and parched. 

11. The priest afterwards gives the extreme unction; and begins by anointing the eyes while he says the following words, “Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Deus, quidquid per visum deliquisti.” He then anoints the other senses the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the hands, the feet, and the loins, saying, “Quidquid per aditum deliquisti per odoratum, per gustum et locutionem, per tactum, per gressum, et lumborum delectationem.” And, during the administration of the extreme unction, the devil is employed in reminding the sick man of all the sins he committed by the senses by the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the hands; and says to him, After so many sins can you expect to be saved? Oh! what terror is then caused by everyone of those mortal sins, which are now called human frailties, and which, worldlings say, God will not punish! Now they are disregarded; but then every mortal sin shall be a sword that will pierce the soul with terror. But let us come to what happens at death.

Third Point. What happens at the time of death.

12. After having administered the sacraments the priest departs, and leaves the dying man alone. He feels more terror and alarm after the sacraments than before he received them; for he knows that his entire preparation for them was made in the midst of great confusion of mind and great uneasiness of conscience. But the signs of approaching death appear, the sick man falls into a cold sweat; the sight grows dim, and he no longer knows the persons that attend him, he has lost his speech, and can scarcely breathe. In the midst of this darkness of death he continues to say, “Oh! that I had time, that I had another day, with the use of my faculties, to make a good confession!” For, the unhappy man has great doubts about the confession which he has made, he feels that he was not able to excite himself to make a true act of sorrow. But, what time? what day? “Time shall be no longer.” (Rev. 10:6). The confessor has the book open to announce to him his departure from this world. “Profiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.” Depart, Christian soul, from this world. The dying man continues to say within himself, “O lost years of my life! fool that I have been!” But when does he say this? When the scene is about to close for him; when the oil in the lamp is just consumed; and when the great moment has arrived on which his eternal happiness or misery depends.

13. But behold! his eyes are petrified; his body takes the posture of a corpse; the extremities, the hands and feet, have become cold. The agony commences; the priest begins to recite the prayers for the recommendation of a departing soul. After having read the recommendation, he feels the pulse of the dying man, and feels that it has ceased to beat. Light, he says, immediately the blessed candle. O candle! O candle! show us light, now that we have health; for, at the hour of death, your  light shall serve only to terrify us the more. But already the breathing of the sick man is not so frequent; it has begun to fail This is a sign that death is very near. The assisting priest raises his voice, and says to the poor man in his agony, Say after me O God, come to my aid; have mercy on me. My crucified Jesus, save me through your passion. Mother of God, intercede for me. St. Joseph, St. Michael, the archangel, my holy angel-guardian, and all you saints in Heaven, pray to God for me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and Mary, I give you my heart and my soul. But behold the last signs of death; the phlegm is confined in the throat; the dying man sends forth feeble moans; the tears rush from his eyes; finally he twists the mouth, he distorts the eyes, he makes a few pauses, and at the last opening of the mouth, he expires and dies.

14. The priest then brings a candle to the mouth of the dead man, to try if he be still alive, he sees that the flame is not moved, and hence, infers that life is extinct. He says, Requiescat in pace. May he rest in peace. And turning to the bystanders, announces that he is dead. “I hope,” he adds, “he is gone to Heaven.” He is dead, and how has he died? No one knows whether he is saved or damned; but he has died in a great tempest. Such is the death of those unfortunate men who, during life, have cared little about God. “Their souls shall die in a storm.” (Job 36:14). Of everyone that dies it is usual to say that “he is gone to Heaven.” He is gone to Heaven if he deserved Heaven; but, if he merited hell, he has gone to hell. Do all go to Heaven? Oh! how few enter into that abode of bliss!

15. Before the body is cold he is covered with a worn out garment; because it must soon rot with him in the grave. Two lighted candles are placed in the chamber; the curtain of the bed on which the dead man lies is let down, and he is left alone. The parish priest is sent for, and requested to come in the morning and take away the corpse. The priest comes; the deceased is carried to the church; and this is his last journey on this earth. The priests begin to sing the “De profundis clamavi ad te Domine,” etc. The spectators, who look at the funeral as it passes, speak of the deceased. One says, “He was a proud man.” Another, “Oh! that he had died ten years ago!” A third, “He was fortunate in the world; he made a great deal of money! he had a fine house, but now he takes nothing with him. “ And while they speak of him in this manner he is burning in hell. He arrives at the church, and is placed in the middle, surrounded by six candles. Though bystanders look at him, but suddenly turn away their eyes, because his appearance excites horror. The Mass is sung for his repose, and after Mass, the “Libera ;” and the function is concluded with these words, Requiescat in pace May he rest in peace. May he rest in peace, if he died in peace with God; but, if he has died in enmity with God, what peace what peace can he enjoy? He shall have no peace as long as God shall be God. The sepulcher is then opened, the corpse is thrown into it; the grave is covered with a tombstone; and he is left there to rot and to be the food of worms. It is thus that the scene of this world ends for each of us. His relatives put on mourning; but they first divide among themselves the property which he has left. They shed an occasional tear for two or three days, and afterwards forget him. And what shall become of him? If he be saved, he shall be happy forever; if damned, he must be miserable for eternity. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Appendix C

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori’s Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

"Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee." LUKE xix. 43.

SEEING from a distance the city of Jerusalem, in which the Jews were soon to put him to death, Jesus Christ wept over it. "Videns civitatern flevit super illam." Our merciful Redeemer wept at the consideration of the chastisement which was soon to be inflicted on the city, and which he foretold to her inhabitants. ”Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee. ” Unhappy city! thou shalt one day see thyself encompassed by enemies, who shall beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children in thee, and shall not leave in thee 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 by his enemies first, by 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 remorses of conscience.

1. "Their soul shall die in a storm." (Job xxxvi. 14.) The unhappy sinners who remain in sin die in a tempest, with which God has beforehand threatened them. ”A tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked." (Jer. xxiii. 19.) At the commencement of his illness the sinner is not troubled by remorse or fear; because his relatives, friends, physicians, and all tell him that his sickness is not dangerous; thus he is deceived and hopes to recover. But when his illness increases, and malignant symptoms, the harbingers of approaching death, begin to appear, then the storm with which the Lord has threatened the wicked shall commence. "When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction as a tempest shall be at hand." (Prov. i. 27.) This tempest shall be formed as well by the pains of sickness as by the fear of being obliged to depart from this earth, and to leave all things; but still more by the remorses of conscience, which shall place before his eyes all the irregularities 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. iv. 20.) Then shall his sins rush upon his mind, and fill him with terror. His iniquities shall stand against him to convict him, and, without the aid of other testimony, shall assail him, and prove that he deserves hell.

2. The dying sinner will confess his sins; but, according to St. Augustine, “The repentance which is sought from a sick man is infirm." (Serm, xxxvii., de Temp.) And St. Jerome says, that of a hundred thousand sinners who continue till death in the state of sin, scarcely one shall be saved. ”Vix de centum milibus, quorum mala vita fuit, meretur in morte a Deo indulgentiam, unus." (Epis. de Mort. Eus.) St. Vincent Ferrer writes, that it is a greater miracle to save such sinners, than to raise the dead to life. ”Majus miraculum est, quod male viventes faciant bonum finem, quam suscitare mortuos." (Serm. i., de Nativ. Virgin.) They shall feel convinced of the evil they have done; they will wish, but shall not be able, to detest it. Antiochus understood the malice of his sins when he said: ”Now I remember the evils that I have done in Jerusalem." (1 Mach. vi. 12.) He remembered his sins, but did not detest them. He died in despair and oppressed with great sadness, saying: "Behold, I perish with great grief in a strange land" (v. 13). According to St. Fulgentius, the same happened to Saul at the hour of death: he remembered his sins; he dreaded the punishment which they deserved; but he did not detest them. “Non odit quid fecerat, sed timuit quod nolebat."

3. Oh! how difficult is it for a sinner, who has slept many years in sin, to repent sincerely 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 smiths anvil." (Job xli. 15.) During life, instead of yielding to the graces and calls of God, he became more obdurate, as the anvil is hardened by repeated strokes of the hammer. ”A hard heart shall fare evil at the last." (Eccl. iii. 27.) By loving sin till death, he has loved the danger of his damnation, and therefore God will justly permit him to perish in the danger in which he wished to live till death.

4. St. Augustine says, that he who is abandoned by sin before he abandons it, will scarcely detest it as he ought at the hour of death; for he will then detest it, not through a hatred of sin, but through necessity. ”Qui prius a peccato relinquitur, quam ipse relinquat, non libere, sed quasi ex necessitate condemnat." But how shall he be able to hate from his heart the sins which he has loved till death? He must love the enemy whom till then he has hated, and he must hate the person whom he has till that moment loved. Oh! what mountains must he pass! He shall probably meet with a fate similar to that of a certain person, who kept in confinement a great number of wild beasts in order to let them loose on the enemies who might assail him. But the wild beasts, as soon as he unchained them, instead of attacking his enemies, devoured himself. When the sinner will wish to drive away his iniquities, they shall cause his destruction, either by complacency in objects till then loved, or by despair of pardon at the sight of their numbers and enormity. "Evils shall catch the unjust man unto destruction." (Ps. cxxxix. 12.) St. Bernard says, that at death the sinner shall see himself chained and bound by his sins. “We are your works; we will not desert you." We will not leave you; we will accompany you to judgment, and 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." (Apoc. xii. 12.) At death the devil exerts all his powers to secure the soul that is about to leave this world; for he knows, from the symptoms of the disease, that he has but little time to gain her for eternity. The Council of Trent teaches that Jesus Christ has left us the sacrament of Extreme Unction as a most powerful defence against the temptations of the devil at the hour of death. “Extremæ Unctionis sacramento finem vitæ tanquam firmissimo quodam præsidio munivit." And the holy council adds, that there is no time in which the enemy combats against us with so much violence in order to effect our damnation, and to make us despair of the divine mercy, as at the end of life. ”N ullum tempus est, quo vehementius ille omnes suæ versutiæ nervos intendat at perendos, nos penitus, et a fiducia, etiam, si possit, divinæ misericordiæ deturbandos, quam cum impendere nobis exitum vitæ perspicet." (Sess. 14, cap. ix. Doctr. de Sacr. Extr. Unct.)

6. Oh! how terrible are the assaults and snares of the devil against the souls of dying persons, even though they have led a holy life! After his recovery from a most severe illness, the holy king Eleazar said, that the temptations by which the devil assails men at death, can be conceived only by him who has felt them. We read in the life of St. Andrew Avelliuo, that in his agony he had so fierce a combat with hell, that all the religious present were seized with trembling. They perceived that, in consequence of the agitation, his face swelled, and became black, all his members trembled, and a flood of tears gushed from his eyes. All began to weep through compassion, and were rilled with terror at the sight of a saint dying in such a manner. But they were afterwards consoled, when they saw that as soon as an image of most holy Mary was held before him, he became perfectly calm, and breathed forth his blessed soul with great joy.

7. Now, if this happens to the saints, what shall become of poor sinners, who have lived in sin till death? At that awful moment the devil does not come alone to tempt them in a thousand ways, in order to bring them to eternal perdition, but he calls companions to his assistance. "Their house shall be filled with serpents." (Isa. xiii. 21.) When a Christian is about to leave this world, his house is filled with devils, who unite together in order to effect his ruin. "All her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits." (Lamen. i. 3.) All his enemies will encompass him in the straits of death. One shall say: Be not afraid; you shall not die of this sickness! Another will say: You have been for so many years deaf to the calls of God, and can you now expect that he will save you? Another will ask: How can you repair the frauds of your past life, and the injuries you have done to your neighbour in his property and character? Another shall ask: What hope can there be for you? Do you not see that all your confessions have been null that they have been made without true sorrow, and without a firm purpose of amendment? How can you repair them with this heart, which you feel so hard? Do you not see that you are lost? And in the midst of these straits and attacks of despair, the dying sinner, full of agitation and confusion, must pass into eternity. “The people shall be troubled and they shall pass." (Job xxxiv 20.)

Third Point. The dying sinner shall be tortured by the fears of eternal death.

8. Miserable the sick man who takes to his bed in the state of mortal sin! He that lives in sin till death shall die in sin. "You shall die in your sin." (John viii. 21.) It is true that, in whatsoever hour the sinner is converted, God promises to pardon him; but to no sinner has God promised the grace of conversion at the hour of death. ”Seek the Lord while he may be found." (Isa. iv. 6.) Then, there is for some sinners a time when they shall seek God and shall not find him. “You shall seek me, and shall not find me." (John vii. 34.) The unhappy beings will go to confession at the hour of death; they will promise and weep, and ask mercy of God, but without knowing what they do. A man who sees himself under the feet of a foe pointing a dagger to his throat, will shed tears, ask pardon, and promise to serve his enemy as a slave during the remainder of his life. But, will the enemy believe him? No; he will feel convinced that his words are not sincere that his object is to escape from his hands, and that, should he be pardoned, he will become more hostile than ever. In like manner, how can God pardon the dying sinner, when he sees that all his acts of sorrow, and all his promises, proceed not from the heart, but from a dread of death and of approaching damnation.

9. In the recommendation of the departing soul, the assisting priest prays to the Lord, saying: ”Recognize, O Lord, thy creature." But God answers: I know that he is my creature; but, instead of regarding me as his Creator, he has treated me as an enemy. The priest continues his prayer, and says: ”Remember not his past iniquities. ” I would, replies the Lord, pardon all the past sins of his youth; but he has continued to despise me till this moment the 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. ii. 27, 28.) You, says the Lord, have turned your back upon me till death; "and do you now want me to deliver you from vengeance? Invoke your own gods the creatures, the riches, the friends you loved more than you loved me. Call them now to come to your assistance, and to save you from hell, which is open to receive you. It now justly belongs to me to take vengeance on the insults you have offered me. You have despised my threats against obstinate sinners, and have paid no regard to them. ”Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide." (Deut. xxxii. 35.) The time of my vengeance is now arrived; it is but just to execute it. This is precisely what happened to a certain person in Madrid, who led a wicked life, but, at the sight of the unhappy death of a companion, went to confession, and resolved to enter a strict religious order. But, in consequence of having neglected to put his resolution into immediate execution, he relapsed into his former irregularities. Being reduced to great want, he wandered about the world, and fell sick at Lima. From the hospital in which he took refuge he sent for a confessor, and promised again to change his life, and to enter religion. But, having recovered from his illness, he returned to his wickedness; and, behold! the vengeance of God fell upon him. One day, his confessor, who was a missionary, in passing over a mountain, heard a noise, which appeared to be the howling of a wild beast. He drew near the place from which the noise proceeded, and saw a dying man, half rotten, and howling through despair. He addressed to him some words of consolation. The sick man, opening his eyes, recognized the missionary, and said: Have you, too, come to he a witness of the justice of God? I am the man who made my confession in the hospital of Lima. I then promised to change my life, but have not done so; and now I die in despair. And thus the miserable man, amid these acts of despair, breathed forth his unhappy soul. These facts are related by Father Charles Bovio (part iii., example 9).

10. Let us conclude the discourse. Tell me, brethren, were a person in sin seized with apoplexy, and instantly deprived of his senses, what sentiments of pity would you feel at seeing him die in this state; without the sacraments, and without signs of repentance! Is not he a fool, who, when he has time to be reconciled with God, continues in sin, or returns to his sins, and thus exposes himself to the danger of dying suddenly, and of dying in sin? "At what hour you think not," says Jesus Christ, "the Son of Man will come," (Luke xiii. 40.) An unprovided death, which has happened to so many, may also happen to each of us. And it is necessary to understand, that all who lead a bad life, meet with an unprovided death, though their last illness may allow them some time to prepare for eternity; for the days of that mortal illness are days of darkness days of confusion, in which it is difficult, and even morally impossible, to adjust a conscience burdened with many sins. Tell me, brethren, if you were now at the point of death, given over by physicians, and in the last agony, how ardently would you desire another month, or another week, to settle the accounts you must render to God! And God gives you this time. He calls you, and warns you of the danger of damnation to which you are exposed. Give yourself, then, instantly to God. What do you wait for? Will you wait till he sends you to hell?” Walk whilst you have light." (John xii. 35.) Avail yourselves of this time and this light, which God gives you at this moment, and now, while it is in your power, repent of all your past sins; for, a time shall come when you will be no longer able to avert the punishment which they deserve.

[I entreat my reader to read Sermon xliv., or the Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, on the practical death, or that which practically happens at the death of men of the world. I know by experience that though it does not contain Latin texts, whenever I preached that sermon, it produced a great impression, and left the audience full of terror. A greater impression is made by practical than by speculative truths.] (Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year by St Alphonsus Liguori in .pdf format.)