Alphonsus Liguori

“ If we are unworthy of them, she renders us worthy, by her powerful intercession; and she is very desirous that we should have recourse to her, that she may save us. What sinner ever perished, who, with confidence and perseverance, had recourse to Mary, the refuge of sinners? He is lost who has not recourse to Mary. O Mary, my mother and my hope, I take refuge under your protection; reject me not as I have deserved. Protect me and have pity on me, a miserable sinner. Obtain for me the forgiveness of my sins; obtain for me holy perseverance, the love of God, a good death, and a happy eternity. ”

“ To worldlings who are spiritually blind, the goods of this present life appear great; but death will discover what they really are, dust, smoke and vanity. Before the light of this last lamp all the dazzling grandeur of this world will vanish and disappear. The greatest fortunes, the highest honours, when considered on the bed of death, will lose all their value and splendour. The shade of death will obscure even crowns and sceptres. Grant me, O God, thy holy grace, for this alone is all I desire. I am grieved for ever having despised such a treasure. Jesus, have pity on me. ”

“ How many rich men, how many nobles, how many monarchs are now in hell! What now remains to them of their riches and honours, but remorse and rage which prey upon their souls, and will continue to prey upon them for all eternity? O my God, enlighten me and assist me. I hope never more to be deprived of thy grace. Have pity on a sinner who desires to love thee.
II. How comes it, writes Salvian, that men believe in death, judgment, hell and eternity, and yet live without fearing them? Hell is believed, and yet how many go down thither! ”

“ Thou art a man, and thou must die. It would be madness for any one to attempt 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? happy or miserable? My Saviour Jesus, be thou a Saviour to me! ”

“ Faith teaches us that in the next life, there are two habitations: one is a palace of delights, where all are happy for ever, and this is paradise: the other is a prison of excruciating torments, where all are for ever miserable, and this is hell. Choose, my soul, to which of the two thou wilt go. If thou desire heaven, thou must walk in the way which leads to heaven; if thou shouldst walk in the way which leads to hell, thou wilt one day unhappily find thyself there. Jesus, enlighten me, Jesus strengthen me. Suffer me not to be separated from thee. ”

“ The earth, the heavens and all nature, with astonishment beheld Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, the Lord of the universe, die of intense pain and anguish, on a disgraceful cross, and why? for the love of men. And do men believe this and not love God? I have believed it, O Jesus, and yet not only have I not loved thee, but I have frequently offended thee. Pardon me, I beseech thee, and remind me continually of the death which thou hast suffered for me, that I may never more offend thee, but may always love thee. ”

“ 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 become to such a soul a paradise. But this will be its sovereign punishment, which will render it for ever inconceivably miserable, to be deprived of God for all eternity, without the least hope of ever again beholding him or loving him. Jesus my Redeemer, nailed to the cross for my sake, thou art my hope; O that I had died rather than offended thee! ”

“ Thou, my Redeemer, hast shown that regard for my soul, as to shed thy blood for its salvation, and I have been so wretched as to allow it to perish for a mere nothing, for a caprice, for a maddening passion, for a miserable gratification, for contempt of thy grace and love. Ah! if faith did not assure me that thou hast promised to pardon those who repent, I should not now dare to implore thy forgiveness. ”

“ O my God, what, of all the delights by which I have offended thee, now remains but bitterness and sorrow to torment me? I do not regret the bitterness which they now cause me; but only the displeasure which they have given thee, who hast so much loved me.
II. The wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest. Isa. lvii. 20. What is a soul in disgrace with God, but a tempestuous sea, always in agitation? one wave rises and another succeeds, and all are waves of pain and anguish. No one in the world can have all things according to his will. ”

“ Ungrateful soul! if thou hadst committed the same offences against man, who is viler than the earth, verily he would not have borne with thee. And how great mercies have I exercised towards thee! How many times have I called thee, and enlightened thee, and pardoned thee? The time of punishment is at hand; the time of forgiveness is past Thus has God spoken to many who are now suffering in hell; where one of their greatest torments is the remembrance of the mercies which they formerly received from God. Jesus, my Redeemer, and my Judge, I also have deserved to hear the same from thy mouth ”

“ Blessed in death, therefore, not he who has abounded in riches, honours, and pleasures, but he who has patiently endured poverty, contempt and sufferings! The possession of temporal goods affords no consolation at the moment of death; that alone consoles us which has been done or suffered for God. O Jesus, separate my heart from this world, before death entirely takes me from it. Help me with thy grace; thou indeed knowest how great is my weakness. Permit me not to be any more unfaithful to thee, as I have hitherto been. ”

“ III. Of what avail then will riches be at the hour of death, when nothing will remain for us but a wooden coffin and a winding sheet? Of what avail will be the honours which we have acquired, when no others will remain for us but a funeral procession and a tomb, which will not be able to afford us the least satisfaction, if our souls should be lost? And of what avail will the beauty of the body be, when the body itself will become a mass of worms, infect the air with its stench, and excite horror in all who behold it? ”

“ 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; and this shall be its hell of hells, to know that it hates a God who is infinitely lovely. It will desire that it were possible, to destroy God, to whom it is hateful; and to destroy itself, hating God; and this will be the eternal occupation of this unhappy soul. Do thou, O Lord, have pity on me. ”

“ A sick man may suffer all the day long the pains of the most cruel disorders; but, when night comes, he may perhaps sleep a little and be somewhat relieved. Not so with the miserable reprobate. For him there is no relief, no repose. He must weep and lament for ever, he must suffer for ever, and suffer torments the most excruciating, without once having throughout all eternity one moment of ease or mitigation. Such, O Jesus, would have been my lot, hadst thou called me out of life in my sins. Dearest Redeemer, I refuse not to suffer, but will truly love thee. ”

“ The approach of death, therefore, is terrible to those only, who have thought of nothing but of gratifying themselves during their life time, and have never thought of their last end; but it is not terrible to those, who by frequently thinking upon it, have learnt to despise all earthly goods, and to love nothing but God. Oh! my Saviour, I perceive that death is already approaching towards me, and as yet I have done nothing for thee, who didst die for me. No, before death, I will, O God, love thee, who art worthy of infinite love. ”

“ When the sinner deliberates whether he shall give or refuse his consent to sin, he takes the balance into his hands to decide which is of most value — the favour of God, or some passion, some worldly interest or pleasure. When he yields to temptation, what does he do? He decides that some wretched gratification is more desirable than the favour of God. Thus it is that he dishonours God, declaring, by his consent, that a miserable pleasure is preferable to the divine friendship. Thus, then, O God, have I so many times dishonoured thee, by esteeming thee less than my miserable passions! ”

“ Behold, O man, behold thy God, who has died for thy love; see how his arms are extended to embrace thee, his head bowed down to give thee the kiss of peace, his side opened to give thee access to his heart, if thou wilt but love him. Assuredly I will love thee, my treasure, my love, and my all. And whom shall I love, if I love not God who has died for me? ”

“ And what shall we say when the summons of death shall be brought to us? No, my God, I do not wish to die disquieted and ungrateful, as at present I should die, if death were to overtake me; I desire to change my life, I desire to bewail my offences against thee, I desire to love thee with my whole heart. O Lord, help me, enable me to do something for thee, before I die: for thee, who hast died for the love of me. ”

“ In death all is left behind. The soul enters eternity, alone and unattended, except by her 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.
II. Men come into the world of unequal conditions: one is born rich, another poor, one a noble, another a plebian: but all go out of it equal and alike. Consider the graves of the dead: see if thou canst discover among the bodies which are there interred, who was a master and who a servant, who was a king and who a beggar. ”

“ II. Men esteem it a great affair to gain a law-suit, to obtain a post of honour, or to acquire an estate. Nothing, however, which 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! ”

“ In a word, honours, pleasures* and riches, must all end in death. O my God! make me sensible of the immensity of thy goodness, that I may love nothing but thee.
II. Death deprives man of whatever he may possess in this world. What a sad sight, to behold a rich man, after death, carried out of his palace, to return thither no more! how sad, to behold others taking possession of the estates which he has left, of his wealth, and of whatever else he so lately enjoyed! His servants, after having accompanied him to his grave, abandon him, and leave him there, to be devoured by worms ”

“ III. 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. Esther xiii. 9, 10. 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 give thee thanks, O God, for having waited for me. What would have become of me, had I died in one of those nights in which I went to rest under thy displeasure? ”

“ But will the souls in hell, by eternally suffering the torments which they endure, by the habit of enduring them for so many years, will they ever find their intensity diminished? No, for the torments of hell are of such a nature that, at the end of a hundred or a thousand years, those souls will experience the same degree of pain from them as when they first descended into that bottomless abyss. “ In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded.” ”

“ I. TIME is a treasure of inestimable value, because in every moment of time we may gain an increase of grace and eternal glory. In hell the lost souls are tormented with the thought, and bitterly lament that now there is no more time for them, in which to rescue themselves by repentance from eternal misery. What would they give but for one hour of time to save themselves by an act of true sorrow from destruction! In heaven there is no grief ”