How can we guard against the possible temptations of the devil at the moment of death? Some golden advice

Saint of the Day – 9/29/84 – Saturday

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“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”

 The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.

 

The Last Judgment II * Image of Judgment: The parable of the talents * Absolute necessity to pay attention to your inner self so as not to sin * One of the things the Revolution has instilled most in man is the horror of paying attention to his inner self * The temptations that may come at the hour of agony

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

My dear friends, you’ve made your request with such verve, liveliness, and originality that it makes me feel how much I missed your proclamations. You raised the subject of the Last Judgment.

To say something about it, I recall that an image of the Last Judgment appears in a parable in the Gospel. Our Lord tells a parable, a story He invented to instruct and educate those who listened. He tells the story of a man who had money to invest and went on a journey. So he called his slaves and gave them the money to invest in his absence. To one he gave (I don’t remember exactly) three coins, to another two coins, and to the third one coin. The three were to make that money yield a profit in his absence. He went on a trip, and the three began to wonder what they would do. The one with three coins made the money grow. After some time, he had three more coins. The one with two coins made two coins, which makes you think about the modern capitalist system in which you invest and make more money. The third had only one coin, so he said to his companions:

“Our master is a severe and vengeful man. If I invest these coins and lose, I may face severe punishment. It is better for me to bury the coin in the ground in a place only I know. When he comes back, I will dig up the coin and give it back to him. I will not be punished, because after all, his money is here. Of course, I won’t get a prize or reward, because I didn’t do anything for him. But that’s how it is. I won’t get his reward, but I won’t get his punishment either. I’ll just get on with my life. I think that’s the best solution!” So he went and buried the coin.

After some time, the master of these three slaves returned and called out:

Now, settle your accounts!

One said:

“You gave me three coins, and I earned three more from them. Here they are.”

The master called him a good and faithful servant and expressed his pleasure.

The one who had received two coins also presented two more, and his master called him a good and faithful servant.

The last one, who had received one coin, came over with it, and the master said,

 “What about you with that coin?”

 He said to the master something like:

 “You are a cruel and vengeful man, so I buried the coin. Here it is.”

The master punished him. Why? Because he should have made the coin yield a profit but did not. He behaved like a lazy man. At that time, there were no banks—it is one of the advances invented later—and the man could not deposit the coin in a bank, so he buried it. It was a way many people kept their money safe from theft. They would bury it in a secret place no one knew. From time to time, boxes of coins are still found buried underground in Europe by people who died and either didn’t have time or didn’t want to tell anyone where the money was.

Well, then, that man was punished.

This act, in which a master gives one, two, or three coins to slaves to make a profit, then returns and asks for an account, is reminiscent of what will happen on Judgment Day. In essence, this is it!

God created and gave each of us a soul He breathed into us, a body with the conditions of our birth, and the circumstances in which we live. He made a world of favorable circumstances available to us. He also placed many obstacles in our path. Favorable circumstances and obstacles constitute a kind of game around us; it is a matter of using favorable circumstances, overcoming obstacles, and removing them to achieve a good result for God.

Throughout our lives, God does much more than that for us. With His inestimable grace, He penetrates our souls from the moment of baptism, making us members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. He makes us members of the Mystical Body of Christ and thus makes His grace, a created participation in His own uncreated life, live in us. Therefore, it is as if He lived in us. He is somehow living in us.

On the other hand, we have the Sacraments: Confession, Communion, etc. We have the Rosary, devotion to Our Lady, and so many resources the Church makes available to us until the last hour of death. The Anointing of the Sick, which was so much more beautiful and correct to call Extreme Unction, is given to man “in extremis” when in serious danger of death, and it does not need to be extreme. This Anointing invigorates his physical strength and prepares his soul to face death.

God gives us all this and accompanies us with his grace and help until the end. Grace works in us until the last moment before the soul separates from the body. The guardian angel prays for us, driving the demons away. Our Lady prays for us. In the heavenly court, saints and angels, whose existence we are unaware of, are concerned for us and pray for us. When each of us dies, [he is told]: “Give an account of yourself!” “Give an account of yourself!”

In a flash, we see everything we have received. We see everything we have yielded… and everything we have not.

And who is that Master? It is Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, demanding our accounts: “Now, let’s see how you score!”

At the Last Judgment, a judgment of all men together, this is repeated in a solemn manner. It is not an individual judgment in which each person is judged and takes the path that divine justice has commanded. That person is now judged before everyone. Justice is done in the eyes of all, and each person is told who they are and the path they should take.

In the biography of Simon de Montfort that I am reading, I found a clean, strong, and beautiful way to insult someone in the Middle Ages. When someone wanted to say something rude to another, they would say: “O straw for Hell!”

It is straw that goes to the eternal fire of Hell. “Paille d’Enfer!” Straw of Hell! The book is in French. All sinners will become straw of Hell when Our Lord sends them away. The others will go to Heaven.

There is one thing that is a matter of faith and absolutely certain: no man will escape this judgment. Elias and Enoch, awaiting God’s judgment, must first come to Earth and face the Antichrist. Elias will be killed by the Antichrist, and so will Enoch. Then they will be resurrected. No one knows when they will die, and no one knows when the end of the world will be. So, after such a venerable, admirable, extraordinary life lasting two thousand years or more, when Elias and Enoch die, they will be judged and must give an account: “Rede rationem tuam!” Give an account!

This will happen to each of us. One’s particular judgment is terrible, and so is the Last Judgment.

The first person I ever saw die was a clerk at the College of Veterinary Medicine, where I was a student librarian. He was an ordinary-looking man. I had never paid any attention to him. I would see him when I came in or left, say “good morning” or “see you later,” but I didn’t pay him any attention. I worked in a library, and he worked in the storeroom. I don’t think he paid any attention to me either.

Suddenly, I hear a commotion, and someone says, “So-and-so is dying in the storeroom” (I don’t even remember the poor fellow’s name).

I was shocked and immediately thought of his soul, but I might have been mistaken. The people saying that were administrative staff. The doctors had all left. Was he really dying?

I went into the storeroom and found a man of medium height, neither very fat nor very thin. He had a lot of brown hair. There was something strange about him, a sign of poor health, because he was a little chubby and very yellow, a bloodless yellow, like the color of yellow candle wax. He was white, not Asian. He was wearing his work apron and lying on the floor with his arms open in the shape of a cross, but it wasn’t a religious gesture, just a casual thing. His eyes were glazed over, seeing nothing. Barely breathing…

I quickly hailed a passing taxi and went to fetch an Augustinian priest from that red-brick church in the Aclimação neighborhood. The priest arrived promptly, saw the poor man still alive, and gave him absolution. All this happened quickly, but I realized he had already taken many strides toward eternity in those few minutes. His eyes were glazed, his skin even more yellow, and his face more swollen, as if more detached from Earth. He seemed to be halfway between Heaven and Earth.

I had that poignant feeling I always had whenever I saw people die, as when I saw my father die, for example. The isolation that often befalls those who do not die immediately. They have a stroke or something and lose contact with the earth. They are left alone, unaware that others are dealing with them. They are left alone, staring at a fixed point, as if sucked in by death, which is pulling them away from life. Naturally, they are thinking, thinking, thinking… Thinking about what? About the Judgment that is coming.

What a tremendous thing… tremendous…

I’ve read in spiritual books that this isolation is very dangerous because, at that moment, a person sees death approaching and the devil tempts him. The devil wants to launch a final assault to see if he can take that person to Hell. So he gives the person the temptation that seems most frequent…

There are several cases of people who see their whole life pass before them like a very fast tape when they suffer a disaster or a very strong trauma, and death is imminent. With a critical eye, they remember everything they have done and analyze things they had not analyzed before. Sins they have committed and did not realize were sins; acts of virtue they had done and did not realize were acts of virtue. Actions that were neither sinful nor virtuous in themselves, but which they carried out carelessly, without thinking about God, as if they were atheists. Everything, everything, everything together forms a flood of seventy, eighty years of existence for which man suddenly has to give an account.

You understand how temptation can come: “Forget it, there’s no solution for you. You’re lost. At this point, you have not confessed to the priest, not out of ill will, but because you forgot. Now, if the priest does not come to give you absolution, the priest has settled things for you; if he does not come to give you absolution, you are lost because you have not been forgiven.”

In fact, those sins are included in the confessions he made, but the devil lies. At that moment, the person’s mind is confused, and he tends to despair. He often tends to blaspheme at the moment of death.

You can see how dangerous and terrible Judgment is.

What treasures will God ask us to account for? Let us learn to account for this treasure.

There is a treasure within us—I am speaking in terms of Judgment. There are many treasures within us, but this one is special. Because of the wickedness of today’s world, which has surrendered to the Revolution to the degree you know, almost everyone either does not use this treasure or destroys it, and from this comes a series of countless evils.

Often, a man who is about to appear before God’s Judgment remembers: such a bad thought, such a bad look, such a thing he did suddenly and thoughtlessly… How many bad actions does a man commit thoughtlessly? He does not realize they are wrong actions, or, if he does, he does not fully realize it. So, one might say that he is not at fault, because if he did not realize it, poor thing, how can he be blamed for doing that? Is this problem clear?

{{I see that your enthusiasm has passed… Your faces are growing serious… If they weren’t, it would be a sign that the message was not being conveyed well, because this is exactly the effect this meditation should produce.}}

The person then feels like saying to God:

 “Lord, I didn’t realize it. I didn’t know!” To make God understand (as if God could be deceived): “If I had known, I wouldn’t have done it! If I had realized, I wouldn’t have done it, so I’m not to blame. Don’t judge me for that!”

God could answer (here, we hit the nail on the head):

 “Ah! You didn’t realize? You didn’t know? Didn’t I give you understanding, a sense capable of noticing what is going on inside you? You have consciously or unconsciously protected your body against death and disease a hundred times, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times in your life. A little mosquito landed on your hand, and you immediately realized something was happening to you. You brushed the mosquito away and carefully cleaned your hand. That mosquito carried poison, and you brushed it away automatically. Later, while driving, another car came along, and you swerved quickly and weren’t killed. Later, spoiled food was served at the restaurant, and you became suspicious and ordered something else. And this, that, and the other… You can perceive what is going on inside you.”

“You go to the doctor and tell him exactly how you feel. Sometimes you drive the doctor crazy by listing so many symptoms, some of which are relevant and others not. You keep going on and on to the doctor, more or less indefinitely. The doctor is impatient, and you still have to tell him that you felt a twinge in your earlobe during the night.”

“You pay such close attention to everything that happens to your body! But if you are capable of paying attention and knowing what is going on in your body, are you not capable of knowing what is going on in your soul? Oh! So you have been given the ability to observe, and therefore to know, what is secondary, in order to protect earthly life, but you have not been given this ability to protect the capital that is eternal life? Ooooh! What is this? God’s work is very perfect and would not tolerate this disorder. You would have this ability.”

“However, you have not gotten used to paying attention to what is going on inside you, out of laziness and indolence, so as not to face reality head-on. And you suddenly feel assailed by a temptation you think jumped on you at the last minute; in fact, you have had that evil inclination for a few days, gnawing at you inside without you taking any action. You didn’t want to pay attention because if you had, you would have been forced to fight it. And you found it more enjoyable to play with temptation, to use a little of the delightful appetite it gave you. You thought it was better not to pay attention because of that. You lost the habit of paying attention to yourself. From the depths of your soul, original sin, spewing all kinds of worms all the time, led you into all kinds of dangers, and you didn’t realize it.”

“You often stumbled into these dangers and fell. Later, you repented and confessed. But to amend your ways, you should have gotten into the habit of paying attention to what was going on inside you, because it was your lack of attention that caused you to sin. And if you wanted to avoid sinning again, you should have started paying attention to what was going on inside you. You did not do so. The result was that it happened again. It happened twice, it happened five times, it happened fifty times… and you still did not get into the habit of paying attention to what is going on inside you!”

The result is that he ultimately lost his trust in God.

“I asked Our Lady, and she didn’t help me. I prayed the Memorare, which Dr. Plinio insists we pray so much and which he emphatically guarantees is true (“…it has never been heard of…”), many times, but I received no help! What is this Memorare? Nothing! I don’t trust the Memorare! I don’t trust prayer… I’m standing up, ready to blaspheme. Or I’m giving up on myself, ready to give up on the spiritual life and stop fighting. It didn’t work… I did my best… help didn’t come. I let myself be carried away by the soft life…”

How often does this happen? How many of the numerous young men you attract to the Acies Ordinata or Saúde seats end up leaving in the first, second, or third month? Why? Ultimately, they should get into the habit of paying constant attention to what is going on inside them. They do not develop this habit and are assaulted by the devil anyway. Temptation comes, the temptation of laziness, anger, gluttony, envy, and so on. All the deadly sins assault man; if he does not pay attention, they take over. It’s over!

You are speaking with a 75-year-old man. I assure you that if I do not pay attention to what is going on inside me as I speak to you now, some parts of this lecture will be even worse than they are, because I will fail to demand of myself what is necessary and let myself be carried away by laziness. Or, from time to time, the lecture will go off track and lose its structure and order because I start talking about what I feel like talking about, not what I have to say, according to the outline I have to follow. I don’t even start by making an outline: I just talk freely. Why? Because it’s more enjoyable to talk like a madman walking down the street.

I mean, we must pay attention to ourselves in even the smallest things, day and night! A critical attention: what is good and what is bad. What defect of mine has led to this inclination? What are the main bad inclinations in me from birth? I was conceived in original sin, I am tormented by demons, and I have committed actual sins that have left me with more bad occasions. Everyone today lives in a bad environment, because today the world is terrible. So the environment has also solicited me. These solicitations may have left marks on my soul. If I am not aware of this and am not watching myself at all times… but ‘all times’ does not mean ‘most of the time’; it means every moment without exception! If I am not watching myself, I will do what I should not do. I will want what I should not want, and I will tend toward what I should not tend toward. I will end up doing what I cannot do! You need to pay attention at all times.

Now, my friends… this is seemingly the hardest thing for those not in the habit of doing so. I’ll say more; it seems impossible. But I ask: if you don’t do it, how can you get out of this situation? If we all paid as much attention to our souls as we do to our bodies, what exquisite souls we would have! If we all paid as much attention to our bodies as we do to our souls, what ragged bodies we would have!

Someone will say, “Dr. Plinio, a man thinks about one subject at a time. He should not think about more than one subject at a time, because he thinks poorly. The object of a man’s attention is a single point. So, if you are talking here about Judgment, you cannot at the same time be paying attention to yourself. Because your attention is divided, you will do both things badly. You will not pay attention to Judgment, and, on the other hand, you will not pay attention to yourself. There are times when you have to forget about yourself and your inner life to focus solely on what you are doing. It is even a duty! Otherwise, for example, you will do a poor job of your lecture, which is your obligation to do well, at least as well as you can!”

Now, what is the answer?

The answer is: you sophist, chicaner, shut up! I’ll show you, scoundrel, that you’re saying this solely to embarrass me, because it’s hard to prove otherwise. But I’ll prove that you’re always thinking about more than one subject. I’ll prove it to you right here in the palm of my hand!

All it takes is a small reference that flatters or undermines your self-esteem, and you have a seismograph that immediately registers it with extraordinary sensitivity. You are always on the lookout, with your attention focused on what is humiliating or complimentary to you. And that’s such that you can be dealing with whatever you want, but if something touches your self-esteem, you feel it immediately. Are you paying attention to two subjects or not? Now, tell me!

There are no twists and turns. That’s how it is. It is like that and not otherwise. And it’s not just with you. It’s a series of points. You react when good or bad talk concerns your parents, siblings, or people with whom you have a rivalry. Your self-esteem takes notice when a compliment is paid to someone you have a rivalry with, and envy boils over. Don’t tell me it’s not true, because I’m a man like you and I know how human beings are. It’s obvious.

So, you have a veritable kaleidoscope of things you constantly pay attention to. Your attention is alive and ready to rush in with a spear in hand if the issue is touched upon. And you want to tell me you can’t pay attention to two things at once? You pay attention to twenty or fifty things at the same time. What you don’t do is pay attention to the eternal destiny of your soul! What you don’t do is pay attention to God’s rights. You don’t like to remember that God exists. You don’t like to remember that one day you will be judged. It’s not a topic people like.

Imagine a social circle in this age of disease, when everyone is constantly visiting the doctor: everyone has poisoning, allergies, I don’t know what. Everyone lives with some kind of ailment. People use medicine boxes with three, four, or five pills in colors of deception. Some medicines are pink, others light green, others light blue… to make you think that taking medicine is almost like eating candy. They are colors of deception. The world lives in deception.

People are talking about illness and good and bad doctors, and the conversation continues as you gentlemen enter. Imagine that at a certain point, when it dies down a little, one of you says:

 “Ladies and gentlemen (nobody uses that language anymore!), you are discussing such an interesting and important topic, the health of your own bodies…”

Everyone is already alert, waiting to hear what comes next.

“You are helping each other by sharing your experiences; each of you is gaining a little more knowledge about these matters, learning who the reputable doctors are, who the disreputable doctors are, which medicines are good, and which are bad. In times of illness, all this information can be useful.”

Everyone agrees: “That’s right!”

“You do all this to avoid death.”

As soon as the word “death” is spoken, a fog enters the room.

“You know, people today like any topic except death. They talk about illness to escape death; they are enemies of death. That is one side of it.”

“On the other hand, you are talking to avoid death, but sometimes one cannot avoid it. We will all die.”

People’s faces change immediately. In the circle, one person talks to another, another yawns, and another opens a newspaper, signaling: shut up! Why did you come to remind us of these truths, which are nonetheless indisputable?

You take it further and say:

“Have you realized what’s going on inside you as I speak? Let me analyze the chill that came over you when I mentioned death…”

No matter how liberal the environment you are visiting, it tolerates the greatest immorality and nonsense; people can say the most banal or futile things, or even worse (because good manners dictate that you tolerate what visitors say). If you say, “My dear friends, keep paying attention to your inner selves to know what is sinful and what is not, and thus you will have Heaven!”… the visit is over! You must leave the house within five minutes.

I think you have no doubt about it. These people don’t want to pay attention to their inner selves and live with others who don’t either. They don’t want to know, because one of the things the Revolution has instilled most in man is the horror of paying attention to his inner self.

That’s how it is! Look at what the world is like. I know of experiences like this, where someone died. They go to pay their respects not on the day after the death but the day after that. It’s a convention that on the day the person died and the next day, the family is overwhelmed with grief, so you only visit the day after.

Well, if you go in and try to talk about the deceased, they won’t want to. He’s died, and they don’t talk about him anymore. He’s gone. They’re going to divide up his things and only talk about him to divide his estate. Sometimes, as a formality, they put a nicely framed photograph of him in the living room if the family has money; in a plastic frame if the family is poor. But they put a photograph there, and that’s the most they do! After that, they don’t talk about him anymore, because he crossed the threshold of death. Three or four days ago, that person was the life and soul of the family. They died, and now the family is terrified to talk about them. They disappeared. Everyone tries to rebuild their lives without the one who died. They’re gone… Eternity is far away. As a result, they try not to even remember the deceased.

When they feel sad, they turn inward and do a kind of self-examination. Why am I sad? Ah! I’m remembering so-and-so, who died. I’m not going to think about it anymore; I’ll change the subject.

“I’m remembering such and such an illness I might have. Until the test results come back, it’s not good for my health to think about it. So, I’m not going to think about the test results until they arrive, for otherwise…” In this case, they control themselves, examine themselves inwardly, and know what is going on inside, but not otherwise. In other words, they examine themselves to make life pleasant, not to serve God or prevent their soul from falling into the devil’s hands.

What percentage chance of salvation does a person who acts this way have?

When a person habitually pays attention to themselves, they take on a distinctive appearance. The person acquires another dimension—a psychological, internal one. We look, and his gaze is focused and orderly, not flitting from one place to another. His head, body, gestures, and attitudes have purpose. Everything follows a certain logic, with reflection and calm.

Now, suppose you put five, fifteen, twenty, or more people in a reasonably comfortable room where they cannot talk or read. Suppose they have to stay in that room for ten hours. Since they are not used to paying attention to themselves, after the first hour, they would all start paying attention to each other.

After one hour, they would have gotten to know each other and what they were like; they would no longer be paying attention to each other. Memories and fantasies would come to mind and then disappear after the second or third hour. People would become agitated and tormented, check their watches, and signal to others to ask whether their watch is right. Why? Because they are alone and can only pay attention to themselves. And they don’t want to because their inner self will tell them unpleasant things.

Let these people loose on the street: they look around, talk inconsiderately, walk out of step, and make all kinds of gestures and facial expressions that signal frivolity, thoughtlessness, and constant shifts in their moods.

If we were to film these faces through a small, strategically positioned hole in the ceiling, we could easily tell who has the habit of paying attention to and governing themselves and who does not.

Those who have the habit of governing themselves have nothing to do; they sit calmly in an armchair, pray, and catch up on their prayers. Once the prayers are over, they remain in a state of tranquility and well-being. They have an interior life. They live within themselves.

When a person is not in the habit of paying attention to their inner self, they flit about, get agitated, and stamp their feet. If a cigarette is within reach, they smoke it, but only a little, then immediately put it out because they get sick of it. Then they take another cigarette… and fill ashtrays. It’s rubbish. It’s the image of disorder because disorder is inside the house, and those who have disorder inside have disorder outside.

How can you avoid something like that?

I see many faces before me, and it’s not wrong to ask myself who has the habit of examining themselves. Don’t you think it’s inevitable that I do so? I think it is, and I must confess that it’s not the majority, let’s put it that way, who have the habit of paying attention to themselves. I had been eagerly burning for an opportunity to deal with this subject, and today that opportunity arose in a very natural way. I seized it immediately.

But what good is it for me to say this if people aren’t in the habit of paying attention to themselves? It’s a vicious cycle: they’ll forget. They’ll leave here saying the Saint of the Day was phenomenal, then think about something else because it’s unpleasant and won’t come back to mind. A man who seems to pay no attention to himself pays close attention to removing anything that might inconvenience him.

Therefore, we should leave here with a practical resolution. You understand that I’m not going to say you should spend the whole day paying attention to yourself.

So, friends, let’s talk frankly: we were all conceived in original sin, weren’t we? Everything bad comes out of us. It often happens that people get used to paying attention to themselves and start paying “mega” attention to themselves. A person looks at the qualities he has and even finds qualities he doesn’t have. He forms a completely mega panorama of things and of himself and ends up with what we call “spiritualitis” – a mega vision of himself and an unhealthy desire to imagine nonexistent spiritual problems just so he can make an appointment and get the attention of his spiritual director and be his center of attention for a while. He fabricates problems he doesn’t have.

The complexity is such that we have to pay attention to how we pay attention. How can we overcome this? How can we take a serious, strong attitude toward life if we are neither serious nor strong toward ourselves?

I propose a simple first step: to begin praying to Our Lady, that she may give us the desire to pay attention to ourselves in the right way, not to admire ourselves but to find our faults. A man should never pay attention to his qualities. He should ideally ignore them and know his faults.

He will find his wonderfully recorded qualities in Heaven’s accounts, with the best interest anyone has ever paid anyone: Marian interest! Therefore, practice good deeds, whether internal or external, and do not think about them anymore. They enter the scales of Heaven even more laden with gold. Since all or most of you have made the Consecration [to Our Lady according to St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort], she takes our poor deeds and offers them to Our Lord because we are her slaves:

 “My Son, here it is!”

 He says:

 “My Mother, what a poor little fruit this is. It is a tasteless wild guava, but I see from Your hands that You smiled at this fruit, so it became tasty to Me.”

You can also ask for more than that. Ask every day at fixed times, such as at Communion, during the Rosary (dedicating one of its decades to this), at bedtime, and at wake-up time—four times! In fact, this is the exact order: when waking up, at Communion, during the Rosary, and at bedtime—roughly the chronological order of a man’s day. Whether you are praying the joyful, sorrowful, or glorious mysteries, offer them to Our Lady and simply ask her:

“My Mother, even if I forget this intention during all the beads of this rosary I am going to pray, I ask Thee for: 1) Devotion to Thee (asking Our Lady for devotion to her is always the first request, for once we have it, we have everything else). So, first, that I may reach the pinnacle of devotion to Thee; 2) That Thou givest me strength and disposition to always pay attention to myself and guide myself properly.”

Ask! Ask! You will see that what may seem impossible to you will become possible. The very words I am saying here can serve as a prayer. A simple, the simplest possible prayer. When attending Mass, it is very good and invaluable to say this prayer at the moment of Consecration, when Our Lord Jesus Christ renews the Sacrifice of Calvary in an unbloody manner. You ask through Our Lady that He offer the Sacrifice of Calvary for these intentions:

1) Devotion to Our Lady, which brings with it devotion to Him.

2) Attention to oneself. Attention to oneself. Attention to oneself.

 It’s so simple. Why not do it? Do it methodically. If you simply take this resolution with you, I can say that tonight will have been a blessed night!

Once, while praying in the Church of Luz, my eyes fell naturally on the tombstone in the main chapel. I read it and saw that the famous Friar Santana Galvão was buried there—Antonio de Sant’Ana Galvão, a Franciscan friar (the nuns there are Franciscans) who founded that convent. He is buried there, next to the convent of Conceptionist nuns, a branch of the Franciscans. On the tombstone is his eulogy: “Here lies Friar Antonio de Sant’Ana Galvão, who piously breathed his last on such a day, always holding his soul in his hands” (“aninam suan in manus semper tenens, eflavit spiritum”).

I was thrilled by the sobriety and richness of this eulogy. He was a man who held his soul in his hands. He did with it what he wanted because he paid constant attention to it and had enough virtue to do so. What a eulogy! How magnificent!

I wish you this great good because I esteem you very much.

With that, the Saint of the Day is given.

(Can you give us a fatinho?)

Fatinho… Let me see if I find a fatinho related to this subject.

See how your concerns differ from mine. You want a fatinho. You didn’t remember that you’d forget what I said because the fatinho will erase it from your souls. Why? Because you didn’t look inside yourselves, so you want a fatinho!

Those who think this has happened to others, raise your hands!

(Murmurs…)

We know others better than we know ourselves… It’s terrible, but that’s how it is!

Is the fatinho clear? Ahahah… Let’s stay on topic.