26 November 1982
Tolagnaro, Madagascar

My dear Sisters,

St. Vincent had the privilege of being a personal friend of three people who were later to be canonized saints. They were St. Francis de Sales, St. Jane Frances de Chantal and St. Louise. The first of these three future saints whom he came to know was St. Francis de Sales. St. Vincent in his conferences to both his Communities often referred to St. Francis de Sales as our blessed Father and, when the Saint's beatification cause was introduced, St. Vincent was among the witnesses who testified to the holiness of his life. So, too, was St. Jane Frances de Chantal, and her sworn testimony was published in attractive book form some years ago.

Speaking of the hope which was evidenced in the life of St. Francis de Sales, St. Jane Frances remarks: "He said one day to a great prelate, to the Bishop of Belley, in fact, who has since passed it on to us in a sermon, that we must die between two pillows: our humble confession that all we deserve is hell and our perfect trust in God's mercy which will give us Paradise." (Testimony, edited by Elisabeth Stopp, p. 62).

I was reminded of these two pillows between which, according to St. Francis de Sales, we should die, by the readings of today's Mass. Instead of speaking of pillows, St. John in the Book of Revelation speaks about books: "The Book of Life was opened and other books opened which were the record of what they had done in their lives." (Rv 20:12) The books set forth the credit and the debit side of our lives. They remind us of the justice and mercy of God.

We may pass through the gates of death, resting on those two pillows of which St. Francis de Sales spoke, but when we wake up in eternity, I think what will cause us pain will be the realization of the intensity of the love which God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--had for us from the very first moment of our existence, and our poor realization of it and reaction to it during our years on earth. Did you ever have the experience of causing pain to somebody and then only later discovering that that person had been enormously good to you without your knowing it? The experience can be a very painful one for us when we discover such goodness too late. By that I mean, when the person is already dead. The pain you experience is the pain of love you have failed to recognize. I think it will be that way after our deaths. It will not be so much the justice of God that will strike us first, but rather the burning intensity of His love which in so many instances of our lives we spurned and rejected. St. John, as an old man, said over and over again: "God is love."

Cardinal Newman wrote a very fine imaginary poem on the experience of dying. It is called, The Dream of Gerontius. The poem, a fairly long one, ends with the soul being ushered into the presence of God by its guardian angel. The soul gasps and then cries, "Take me away," asking and pleading hopefully and peacefully to be lowered into the cleansing experience of Purgatory.

If it is the love of God for each of us that will pain us most after our deaths, we must still remember that His love endures forever and that His love will arrange all things for us, so that when we have been purified in Purgatory, we will be able to accept fully and without regrets the intense and everlasting love of God. The experience of Purgatory will be the experience of the psalmist in today's responsorial psalm: "My soul is longing and yearning, is yearning for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my soul ring out their joy to God, the living God." (Ps 84:3).

The experience of dying must not take away our hope. Even in the darkness of that experience Our Lord holds out hope to us in today's Gospel. "Think of the fig tree, and indeed every tree. As soon as you see them bud, you know that summer is now near. So with you, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near." (Lk 21:29-30). In countries where there is a season of winter, it is always a great thrill to see the first signs of spring coming in the trees. Spring is a time of hope. Our Lord is assuring us that even in the experience of dying, we should not lose hope.

As we go through the experience of dying, we will rest, as St. Francis de Sales has said, not on one pillow, thinking of the justice of God, but on another one also, thinking of His great "mercy which will give us Paradise."