Saint Bonaventure

The death

Death is inevitable

He often thinks, meditates and ponders diligently that death cannot be avoided, and that the time of death cannot be discovered, that the time pre-established by God cannot be changed. Saint Isidore: What is there in human realities that is more certain than death and more uncertain than the time of death?

This has no compassion for poverty, it does not fear power, it does not respect the excellence of lineage or life, it does not spare youth, it does not pay attention to age, for the old it is at the gates, for the young it is lurking.

• The soul. - I feel that our living is nothing but a passage to death. Why love temporal things if one possesses things for such an uncertain time? "Why desire a long existence, in which the more we live the more we sin, and if life is prolonged the more numerous the sins? Every day evils increase and goods are taken away."
  
  "Who can ever see how much harm we do in the flow of time and how much good we neglect? It is a serious fault for us not to do or consider good works, and to let our minds wander among futile and vain things!".
  
  
• The man. - Saint Gregory in his moral treatises: "Carnal minds, or soul, love temporal realities, because they do not think how fleeting physical life is. If instead they considered how fast its passage is, they would not love this ephemeral prosperity at all". The same author says: "My life is similar to the sailor: whether I sleep or wake, I always go quickly towards death".
  
  "O present life, how many have you deceived! While you flee, you are nothing; while you appear, you are a shadow; while you are exalted, you are smoke; to fools you are sweet, to wise men bitter; those who love you do not know you; those who they run away from you, they really understand you. To some you look long, to deceive them; to others, short, to lead them to desperation".
  
  The author of spirit and soul writes: "Let us exercise our spirit with meditation and consider our miseries. We enter this life with pain, we live it with difficulty, we will emerge from it in fear".
  
  Saint Bernard: "Those who pass through this region of the shadow of death, in the infirmity of the body, in the conflict and place of temptation, observing carefully we feel that we are sadly tormented by a triple discomfort, we are easily seduced, weak to withstand trials and weak in operating".
  
  
• The soul. - I see that we live in vain in this time if we are not careful to obtain the merit that allows us to live in eternity. Although someone is granted forgiveness so that they can live well, it is certain that no one is given the same amount so that they can live long. Saint Bernard: "O safe life, in which the conscience is candid, in which one awaits death without fear, desires its presence and welcomes it with devotion!".
  
  
• The man. - O soul, if you understand that things are like this, listen to my advice and "in this life, while it lasts, prepare yourself for that life which always lasts. While you live in the flesh, die to the world, to begin after material death to live in God".
  
  He thinks that "no one welcomes death with serenity and joy, except those who have prepared themselves for death with good works in life".
  
  He considers Seneca's saying, according to which the fool, that is, the sinner and the criminal, begins death by dying, but the wise and virtuous person conquers death by dying.
  
  
• The soul. - O man, I understand that the death of the righteous is blessed, that of sinners is unhappy and miserable.
  
  
• The man. - O soul, Saint Bernard says well: "The death of the just is good for peace, better for novelty, excellent for security. On the contrary, the death of sinners is very bad, and precisely: sad for the abandonment of the world, worse for the separation of the flesh, worse for the double corrosion, of the worm and of the fire; and what is the greatest misfortune, for the privation of the divine vision.
  (taken from the Soliloquy of the soul)