Alphonsus Liguori

“ The more he has been afflicted with tribulations, if he suffered them with patience, the more will he be glorified in the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, what does it profit a man to abound in riches and honors, if, when he dies, he is lost forever? If we are lost, all the goods that we have enjoyed in this world will be remembered only to increase our misery for eternity.
Do Thou, my God, enlighten me; give me to under stand that my only evil is to offend Thee, and my only good to love Thee. Enable me to spend the remainder of my days in serving Thee. ”

“ The soul was created to be forever united with God, and to enjoy the sight of his enrapturing countenance. God is its last end, its only good, so that all the goods of earth and heaven, without God, could not make it happy. Hence it is that if a condemned soul in hell could possess and love God, hell, with all its torments, would be to it a paradise. But this will be its sovereign punishment, which will render it forever inconceivably miserable, to be deprived of God for all eternity, without the least hope of ever again beholding him or loving him. ”

“ Cyprian says that we are born with a rope around our necks, and as long as we live on earth we hourly approach the gallows, that is, the sickness that puts an end to our life. It would be madness for any one to delude himself with the idea that he shall not die. A poor man may flatter himself that he may become rich, or a vassal that he may be a king; but who can ever hope to escape death? One dies old, another young, but all at last must come to the grave.
I therefore must one day die and enter eternity. But what will be my lot for eternity? ”

“ I am sorry for it, I confess that I have done evil. But Thou wiliest not that the heart that seeks Thee should despair, but rejoice: Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord? Yes, O Lord! I seek Thee, and I love Thee more than myself.
3. How miserable is the Christian who before his death has not spent a good part of his life in bewailing his sins! It is not to be denied that such a man may be converted at his death and obtain salvation; but the mind obscured, the heart hardened, the bad habits formed, the passions predominant, render it morally impossible for him to die happily. ”

“ Therefore, as soon as it shall have departed hence, it will feel itself drawn with most powerful attraction towards a union with God; but having left this life an enemy of God, it will be not only kept back from him by its sins, as by a chain, but dragged by them into hell, there to be forever separated and at a distance from God. The wretched soul in that eternal dungeon will know how beautiful God is, but will not be able to behold him. It will know how amiable God is, but will not be able to love him; it will even feel itself forced by its sins to hate him ”

“ Men esteem it a great affair to gain a lawsuit, to obtain a post of honor, or to acquire an estate. Nothing, however, that will end with time deserves to be esteemed great. Since, therefore, all the goods of this world will one day end in our regard, as we shall either leave them or they will leave us, that affair alone should be esteemed great, upon which depends eternal happiness or eternal misery.
O Jesus, my Redeemer, cast me not away from Thy face, as I have deserved! ”

“ The saints, in order to secure a happy death, renounced all the riches, the delights, and all the hopes which this world held out to them, and embraced poor and mortified lives. They buried themselves alive in this world, to avoid, when dead, being buried forever in hell. ”

“ O God! while others amass the fortunes of this world, may my only fortune be Thy holy grace. Thou alone art my only good both in this life and in the next.
3. In one word, everything on earth will come to an end. All greatness will end, all misery will end, honors will end, ignominies will end; pleasures will end, sufferings will end. Blessed in death, therefore, not he who has abounded in riches, honors, and pleasures, but he who has patiently endured poverty, contempt, and sufferings! ”

“ When we shall have arrived at eternity there will be no question of our residing in a house more or less commodious, or more or less airy: the question will be of our dwelling in a palace overflowing with delights, or in a gulf of endless torments. And for how long a time? not for forty or fifty years, but forever, as long as God shall be God. The saints, to obtain salvation, thought it little to give their whole lives to prayer, penance, and the practice of good works. ”

“ Oh that I had died rather than ever offended Thee!
3. God is the Lord of all things, because he has created all. All things are in Thy power, because Thou hast made heaven and earth, and all things that are under the cope of heaven.'3' All creatures obey God; the heavens, the earth, the sea, the elements, the brute creation; while man, although he has been gifted and loved by God above all other creatures, obeys him not, and is heedless of the loss of his grace! ”

“ I love Thee, O God, and I am sorry for having offended Thee; and I hope, through the merits of Thy Passion, to come to love Thee forever in heaven.
3. The souls in hell will be tormented in their will, by being denied everything which they desire, and by having every punishment inflicted upon them which they do not desire. They will never have anything which they wish for, but everything which they abhor. They will long to rid themselves of their torments and to find peace; but there will be no peace for them; they will be forced to dwell in the midst of their torments forever. ”

“ The hope of those who commit sin because God is forgiving, is an abomination in his sight: their hope, says holy Job, is an abomination? Hence the sinner, by such hope, provokes God to chastise him the sooner, as that servant would provoke his master, who, because his master was good, took advantage of his goodness to behave ill. ”

“ O eternity! eternity!"
How frequently, my God, have I deserved the eternity of hell! Oh, that I had never offended Thee! Grant me sorrow for my sins; have compassion on me.
2. The same Ven. John of Avila says, that he who believes in eternity and becomes not a saint should be confined as one deranged. He who builds a house for himself takes great pains to make it commodious, airy, and handsome, and says: "I labor and give myself a great deal of trouble about this house, because I shall have to live in it all my life." And yet how little is the house of eternity thought of! ”

“ All the greatness and glory of this world will appear no more to poor wordlings, at the hour of death, than as a dream to one awaking from sleep, who finds that the fortune which he had acquired in his dream ends with his sleep. ”

“ Has any rich man taken with him a single coin, or even one servant to attend him? In death all is left behind. The soul enters eternity alone and unattended, except by its works.
Woe to me! where are my works to accompany me to a blessed eternity? I can discover none but such as render me deserving of eternal torments.
2. Men come into the world in unequal conditions: one is born rich, another poor, one a noble, another a plebeian ”

“ Our most important affair is that of our eternal salvation; upon it depends our happiness or misery for ever. This affair will come to an end in eternity, and will decide whether we shall be saved or lost forever; whether we shall have acquired an eternity of delights, or an eternity of torments; whether we shall live forever happy, or forever miserable. ”

“ Thou hast said that, when the sinner repents, Thou wilt forget all his ingratitude. I am sorry above every evil for having despised Thee, my sovereign good; make haste to pardon me, as Thou hast promised; let me be quickly reconciled to Thee. I love Thee now more than myself; may I never more incur Thy displeasure. O Mary, refuge of sinners! succor a poor sinner who invokes thy assistance.
MEDITATION XI.
The Pain of Loss.
i. The greatest pain of hell is not the fire nor the darkness, not the stench, nor any other of all the material torments of that dreadful prison of despair ”

“ Let us detach ourselves from present goods before death tears us away from them. What folly it is to expose ourselves to the danger of losing our souls, for the sake of some attachment to this miserable world, from which we shall soon have to depart ”

“ There are two ways by which the devil endeavors to deceive men to their eternal ruin: after they have committed sin he tempts them to despair on account of the severity of divine justice; but before they have sinned he encourages them to do so by the hope of obtaining the divine mercy. ”

“ Thou hast mercy, says the wise man, upon all, because Thou canst do all things, and overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance. Men conceal their sense of the in juries which they receive, either because they are good, and know that it belongs not to themselves to punish those who offend them; or because they are unable, and have not the power to revenge themselves. But to Thee, my God, it does belong to take revenge of the offences which are committed against Thy infinite majesty ”

“ Never, in the abode of infinite misery will they lose for a moment the remembrance of the time that was allowed them in this life to practise virtue, and to make amends for the evil which they have done ”

“ He who dreads sin avoids dangerous occasions, frequently recommends himself to God, and has recourse to the means of keeping himself in the state of grace. He who acts thus will be saved; but for him who lives not in this manner it is morally impossible to be saved. ”

“ God himself declares that the sinner treats him with contempt, and complains of it in these words: 1 have brought up children, and exalted them; but they have despised me.1 I have brought up my children, I have preserved and nourished them, but with base ingratitude they have despised me. But who is God who is thus despised by men? ”

“ Of all those who were living upon the earth at the beginning of the last century, not one is now alive. The greatest and most renowned princes of this world have exchanged their country; scarcely does there remain any remembrance of them, and their bare bones are hardly preserved in stone monuments. ”

“ I know that I have certainly deserved hell; I accept all kinds of pain, that Thou mayest reinstate me in Thy grace and deliver me from hell, where I should be forever separated from Thee. Enlighten and strength en me to overcome every obstacle to Thy favor.
3. He who makes no account of the divine threats ought much to fear lest the chastisement threatened in the Proverbs should suddenly overtake him. The man that with a stiff neck despiseth him that reproveth him, shall suddenly be destroyed j and health shall not follow him. ”

“ Yet he would be mocked, if the sinner could go on continually offending him, and yet afterwards enjoy him in heaven. What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap? He who sows good works shall reap rewards ”

“ He shows himself angry towards us, in order that we may amend our lives, and that thus he may be able to pardon and save us; hence if in this life he chastises us for our sins, he does so in his mercy, for by so doing he frees us from eternal woe. ”