Monday Musings - "Forewarned Is Forearmed"

Nothing of eternal value will result from keeping our necks in the sand. Now is the time to ponder what awaits all of us:

 

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"Reflect, then, on the sentiments that will be yours when you will stand before the tribunal of God, with no defenders but your good works, with no companion but your own conscience. And if then you will not be able to satisfy your Judge, who will give expression to the bitterness of your anguish? 

 

For the question at issue is not a fleeting temporal life, but an eternity of happiness or an eternity of misery. Whither will you turn? What protection will you seek? Your tears will be powerless to soften your Judge; the time for repentance will be past. Little will honors, dignities, and wealth avail you, for 'Riches,' says the Wise Man, 'shall not profit in the day of vengeance, but justice shall deliver a man from death.' (Prov. 11:4).

 

The unhappy soul can only exclaim with the prophet, 'The sorrows of death have encompassed me, and the perils of hell have found me.' (Ps. 114:3). Unhappy wretch! How swiftly this hour has come upon me! What does it now avail me that I had friends, or honors, or dignities or wealth? All that I can now claim is a few feet of earth and a windings-sheet. My wealth which I hoarded I must leave to be squandered by others, while the sins of injustice which I here committed will pursue me into the next world and there condemn me to eternal torments. 

 

Of all my guilty pleasures the sting of remorse alone remains. Why have I made no preparation for this hour? Why was I deaf to the salutary warnings I received? 'Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproofs, and have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined my ear to my masters?' (Prov. 5:12-13).

 

To preserve you, my dear Christian, from these vain regrets, I beg you to gather from what has been said three considerations, and to keep them continually before your mind. The first is the terrible remorse which your sins will awaken in you at the hour of death; the second is how ardently, though how vainly, you will wish that you had faithfully served God during life; and the third is how willingly you would accept the most rigorous penance, were you given time for repentance.

Acting on this advice, you will now begin to regulate your life according as you will then wish to have done."

(The Sinner's Guide by Ven. Louis of Granada, O.P.)