Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/100

 the news of death, should say: ”Console yourself, for the time has arrived when you shall no longer offend God." 10. St. Ambrose adds, that God permitted death to enter into the world, that, by dying, men should cease to sin: "Passus est Dominus subintrare mortem ut culpa cessaret." (Loco cit.) It is, then, a great error to imagine that death is a chastisement for those who love God. It is a mark of the love which God bears to them, because he shortens their life to put an end to sin, from which they cannot be exempt as long as they remain on this earth. ”For his soul pleased God: therefore he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities." (Wis. iv. 14.) Third Point. Death delivers us from the danger of falling into hell, and opens Paradise to us.

11. ”Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints." (Ps. cxv. 16.) Considered according to the senses, death excites fear and terror; but, viewed with the eye of faith, it is consoling and desirable. To the saints it is as amiable and as precious, as it appears terrible to sinners. ”It is precious," says St. Bernard, ”as the end of labours, the consummation of victory, the gate of life." The joy of the cup-bearer of Pharaoh, at hearing from Joseph that he should soon be released from prison, bears no comparison to that which a soul that loves God feels on hearing that she is to be liberated from the exile of this earth, and to be transported to the enjoyment of God in her true country. The Apostle says, that, as long as we remain in the body, we wander at a distance from our country in a strange land, and far removed from the life of God: ”While we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord." (2 Cor. v. 6.) Hence, St. Bruno teaches, that our death should not be called death, but the beginning of life. ”Mors dicenda non est, sed vitæ principium." And St. Athanasius says: ”Non est justis mors sed translatio." To the just, death is but a passage from the miseries of this earth to the eternal delights of Paradise. O desirable death! exclaimed St. Augustine; who is there that does not desire thee? For thou art the term of evils, the end of toils, and the beginning of everlasting repose! ”O