XXXIV.

“BE READY!”

(_A visit for the First Friday of the month._)

“_Be ready!_” Your word of warning, Lord, and my one desire. And so I come to You to get ready.

I shall be too weak and suffering on my bed of death, too appalled by the sight of my past life to be able to do much by way of preparation for the Last Sacraments. Yet I shall need all their grace, and I must bring to them at least the necessary dispositions. Take the care of all upon Yourself. See Yourself to my dispositions. Look upon all as a trust committed to You long ago, committed to You again and again with the more self-abandonment as the time and circumstances of my last hour are absolutely unknown to me. Let me find out in that hour how well it is to have hoped in the Lord. Let me find You, my Lord, in death equal to Yourself--to all I have found You in life.

And when the hour for Sacraments has passed; when the Church has stretched her hand to the utmost to hold me to the last, up to the very confines of that world where her jurisdiction stops; when my soul is passing beyond the reach of that hand which has stayed me up till then, and been help and healing all my life through--then, O my Saviour, do for me immediately, by Yourself, what You have done for me through Your Church. Hear Yourself my last confession made straight to Your Heart. Hear my last avowal “of my so many sins”; of those for which I have sorrowed most bitterly, which have been brought oftenest under the absolving hand of Your priest. When my last words in this world are said; when my eyes are closed to the crucifix, and my hands can grasp the rosary no longer; when my ears are shut to all the sounds of earth, and all things are sinking round me--then let me feel You near. Inspire Yourself my last cry for mercy. Sweep away the clouds that will gather thick and fast before the eyes of my soul, seeking to hide that mercy from me. Let Your hand hold me. Let Your arm be round me when all else is falling away. You have passed, O Lord, through the agony of death: be with me in my agony. All the nameless terrors of that hour are known to You. All the dangers that await me then are clear to You here in the tabernacle--the weakness, the weariness, the pains of spirit, and of sense, the temptations kept for the last, the loneliness, the unsuspected snares, the lack of human help. O human Heart, be my secure refuge in that awful hour. I call upon You now to fulfil in my favour then the promise to those devoted to Your sacred Heart: “I will be their assured refuge in life and more especially at death.”

Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa Tuae viae Ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Recollect, O love divine, ’Twas for this lost sheep of Thine Thou Thy glory didst resign.

Sattest weary seeking me, Suff’redst upon the tree: Let not vain Thy labour be.