TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSEIGNEUR DE LA BOUILLERIE, Archbishop of Perga, Coadjutor of Bordeaux.
THE EUCHARIST, DEATH, AND HEAVEN.
THE EUCHARIST, DEATH, AND HEAVEN.
"We see now through a glass darkly, but then face to face."—1 Cor. xiii. 12.
However, none of us can count upon his final perseverance, and, as it is written, that at the end of this perishable world the sun will be darkened and the stars fall from heaven, so in like manner we should always fear lest at the end of our own life the Divine Sun of grace should refuse us His light, and lest, after having perhaps shone through the brilliancy of our virtues, like the stars of heaven, we should fall like them. A good life does not insure a good death, but a good death insures heaven. And it is for this reason that in frequent prayer we should ask of God the grace to die well.
But what is it to die well ? The Church, to designate a holy death, uses a charming expression; she wishes that we may die in the kiss of the Lord !
But the kiss of the Lord—what is it ? In these words, O Christian soul, have you not recognised the kiss of the communion, the kiss of the Eucharist? And hence shall I not be in accordance with the Church in saying that to die well is to communicate well in dying ? I wish then, in this last conversation, to associate again these two terms —the Eucharist and death.
Death, if I think of it alone, is an object of horror to me, all the powers of my nature and all the faculties of my being resist it as a cruel enemy. The Eucharist, on the contrary, sums up for me all that is holy, all that is lovely, all that is immortal. How do I then thank the Lord for having formed such close ties between the Eucharist and death ? If death came alone it would only bring me despair and terror, but the Eucharist and death come together: the one corrects, and makes me forget the bitterness of the other. I dread death less—.the Eucharist is with it!
