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2016 - "Through the Year with Francis of Assisi"
by Murray Bodo

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Friday, October 28, 2016

St. Francis of Assisi - October 28

St. Francis's Description of the Death of the Unrepentant

"You think that the vanity of this world will be yours for a long time, but you are deceiving yourself; for there will come the day and the hour that you don't think about and don't know about and ignore.  Sickness arrives, death draws near, relatives and friends come and say:  Put your affairs in order.  And then wife and children, relatives and friends pretend to weep.  Your eyes move from face to face; and when you see their tears, you are moved by a foolish impulse and say, 'Hear me!  My soul, my body, everything I own, I place in your hands.'  Truly then are you cursed who have entrusted and exposed soul and body and all that you have into such hands.  Of you the Lord says through his prophet, 'Accursed be anyone who trusts in human beings' (Jr 17:5).  For immediately they summon the priest, and the priest says to you, 'Do you wish to make satisfaction, as far as you can, from your own means for your faults and for what you have gained by fraud and by deceiving others?'  And you say, 'No.'  And the priest says, 'Why not?'  'Because I have put everything in the hands of my relatives and friends.'  Then your words begin to fade out, and you die a miserable person. . . ."  --St. Francis, Letter to All the Faithful, Second Version

Francis continues his letter in tomorrow's reading.  What he is trying to show us is what death is like for those who have not repented and placed their life--and death--in God's hand.


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