Although what has been said on faith, hope, and charity may seem sufficient for living well, nevertheless, in order to accomplish these same things more perfectly and more easily, Christ Himself deigned to give us three lessons in the Gospel. For thus He speaks in the Evangelist Luke: "Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands; and you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching" (Luke 12). This parable can be understood in two ways: of preparation for the coming of the Lord on the last day, and for His coming on the day of each one's death. And this latter explanation, which is that of St. Gregory in his thirteenth Homily on this Gospel, seems more pertinent to our purpose; for the expectation of the last day will pertain only to those who will then be found alive, whereas the Lord proposed it to the Apostles and to all of us. Certainly the successors of the Apostles were for many ages very far removed from the last day. Moreover, many signs will precede the last day, which will strike fear into men, as the Lord says: "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world" (Luke 21). But no certain signs will precede the coming of the Lord to the particular judgment on the day of each one's death; and this coming is signified by those words so very often repeated in Holy Scripture: "when he is least expected."
Let us therefore briefly explain this parable, and let us understand that preparation for death is, for all of us, the most necessary business of all. The Lord commands all of us to do three things: first, that our loins be girt; secondly, that we have burning lamps in our hands; thirdly, that we be like men waiting for their lord — for we are no less ignorant of when he will come than we are of the coming of a thief.
Let us explain those words: "Let your loins be girt." The literal meaning of these words is that we should be ready and unencumbered to run to meet Christ when death calls us to the particular judgment. The image is taken from the custom of the Orientals, who wore long garments, and when they were about to walk quickly they would gather up the garment and gird their loins, lest the length of the garment hinder their course. Hence it is also said of the angel Raphael, who had come to accompany the younger Tobias, in the book of Tobit: "Then Tobias going forth found a beautiful young man, standing girded, and as it were ready to walk" (Tob. 5). And from this same custom of the Orientals St. Peter wrote: "Wherefore, having the loins of your mind girt up, being sober, trust perfectly," etc. (1 Pet. 1); and St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: "Stand," he says, "having your loins girt about with truth" (Eph. 6).
Moreover, to have the loins girt signifies two things: first, the virtue of chastity; secondly, a readiness to meet Christ coming to judgment, whether the particular or the general judgment. The former explanation is given by the holy Fathers: Basil, in his exposition of the fifteenth chapter of the prophet Isaiah; Augustine, in his book On Continence; and Gregory, in his thirteenth Homily on the Gospel. For truly the concupiscence of the flesh, beyond all the other passions of the soul, hinders a swift and unencumbered course to meet Christ at his coming; just as, on the contrary, nothing renders a man more unencumbered for following Christ than virginal chastity. For in the Apocalypse we read that virgins follow Christ whithersoever he goeth (Rev. 14), and the Apostle exhorts us, saying: "He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God; but he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided" (1 Cor. 7).
But the other explanation, which does not restrict the girt loins to continence alone, but extends it to a ready obedience to Christ in all things, is that of St. Cyprian, in the eighth chapter of his book Exhortation to Martyrdom; and it is the one followed by those who have written commentaries on the Gospel of Luke. The sense, then, of these words is that the affairs of this life, even the most necessary and important, must not so occupy our minds as to hinder the thought that must come first: preparing ourselves to meet Christ when he calls us through death to render an account of all our works, yea, even of all our words and thoughts, down to every idle word and useless thought. What then will they do when death comes upon them unawares, who are wholly absorbed in temporal affairs, and have never at any time thought of the account to be rendered to God of all their works, all their words, all their thoughts, all their desires, and all their omissions? Will such men run to meet Christ with their loins girt? Or rather, entangled and ensnared, will they not lie in their filth, dumb and despairing? For what will they answer the Judge when he says: "Why did you not attend to my words, with which I admonished you, saying: Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6)? And why did you not consider those words which were so often sung to you publicly in the Church: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things; but one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her (Luke 10)? If I reprehended the solicitude of Martha, who desired most devotedly to serve me, can your solicitude please me — your eagerness to heap up superfluities, to attain perilous honors, to satisfy harmful desires, and meanwhile to forget the kingdom of God and his justice, which above all things is most necessary?" But let us come to the second duty of the diligent and faithful servant: "And lamps burning in your hands" (Luke 12). It is not enough for the faithful servant to have his loins girt, so that he may run freely and unencumbered to meet the Lord; a burning lamp is also required to show him the way, since the Lord is awaited in the night as he returns from the wedding feast. The lamp in this place signifies the law of the Lord, which points out the good way (Ps. 118). "A lamp to my feet," says David, "is thy word." And "the law is a light," says Solomon in the Proverbs (Prov. 6). But this lamp gives no light and shows no way if it is left in the bedchamber or in the house; it must therefore be held in the hands, that it may point out the right way. Many there are who know the divine and human laws, yet they commit many sins, or omit good and necessary works, because they do not carry the lamp in their hands — that is, they do not apply their knowledge of the law to their works. How many most learned men there are who perpetrate the gravest sins because, when they act, they consult not the law of the Lord, but their anger, or their lust, or some other of the passions of the soul!
If King David, when he saw Bathsheba naked, had consulted the law of the Lord — "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" — he would never have fallen into so great a crime; but because he consulted the beauty of the woman, forgetting the divine law, this man, otherwise just and holy, committed adultery. We must therefore always keep the lamp of the law of the Lord not hidden away in a chamber, but in our hands, and obey the words of the Holy Spirit, who bids us meditate on the law of the Lord day and night (Ps. 1), and say with the Prophet himself: "Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept most diligently. O that my ways may be directed to keep Thy justifications!" (Ps. 118) For he who always holds the lamp of the law of the Lord before the eyes of his mind will go to meet his Lord in security when He comes. There remains the third and last duty of the faithful servant: to keep watch always, uncertain when the Lord will come. "Blessed," He says, "are those servants whom, when the Lord shall come, He shall find watching." (Luke 12) Our Lord did not will that all men should depart this life at a fixed and certain time, lest throughout the whole time before it they should indulge in gluttony and drunkenness, in games and sports and other evil works, and then be converted to God a little before death. Divine Providence therefore willed that nothing should be more uncertain than the hour of death: some die in their mother's womb, some scarcely born, some in extreme old age, some in the flower of youth; and again, some languish for a long time, some die suddenly, some recover from a most grave and almost incurable illness; others fall only slightly ill, and when they seem safe from death, the force of the disease grows and carries them off. To mark this uncertainty our Lord says in the Gospel: "And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye: that if the master of the house did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come." (Ibid.) Moreover, that we might understand how important it is to be convinced of the uncertainty of the time at which the Lord will come to judge — whether at the death of each one or at the end of the world — nothing does Holy Scripture repeat more often than that word "Watch" (Matt. 24 and 25; Mark 13; Luke 12 and 21), and the comparison of the thief, who usually comes when he is least expected. The word "Watch" is repeated again and again in the
Gospel of Matthew, of Mark, and of Luke, and the comparison of the thief is found not only in the Gospels, but also in the Epistles of the Apostles and in the Apocalypse.
From all this one can understand how great is the negligence and ignorance — not to say the madness and folly — of the greater part of mankind, who, though warned so often by the very Spirit of truth through the holy writers, who could not lie, that we should prepare ourselves for death as for the greatest and most difficult of affairs, on which depend our supreme and eternal happiness or our supreme and eternal ruin — yet few are roused by the words, or rather by the thunder, of the Holy Spirit.
But someone will say: "What counsel do you give us, that we may watch as we ought, and by watching prepare ourselves for a happy death?" Nothing more useful occurs to me than that we should frequently prepare for death by a serious examination of conscience. Indeed, Catholics who are about to make their yearly confession of sins do not omit the examination of conscience. And again, when they begin to fall ill, by a decree of Pope Pius V physicians are forbidden to visit the sick a second time until, after a previous examination of conscience, their sins have been expiated through confession. In fine, there are almost none in the Catholic Church who, when death is imminent, do not confess their sins after first examining their conscience. But what shall we say of those who are snatched away by sudden death? What of those who suffer from madness, or fall into delirium before confession? What of those who, crushed by the gravity of their illness, cannot even think how many and what sins they have committed? What of those who sin while dying, or die while sinning — as those do who are killed in an unjust war, or in single combat, or caught in adultery? To avoid these and similar misfortunes prudently and religiously, nothing more useful can be devised than that those who have their eternal salvation at heart should diligently examine their conscience twice each day — namely, in the morning and in the evening: what they did, said, desired, or thought during the night or the preceding day, and in what the stain of sin may have entered. And if they discover anything of the kind — especially what might appear mortal — let them not delay to seek the remedy of true contrition, with the resolution to approach the sacrament of Penance at the very first opportunity. Let them therefore ask God for the gift of contrition, let them reflect on the gravity of sin, let them detest their guilt from the heart, and let them seriously consider who has offended whom: namely, that a puny little man has offended almighty God, and a useless servant the Lord of heaven and earth. Let not the eye spare its tears, nor the hand the beating of the breast; and finally let them form a true and effective resolution never again to provoke God by sin, nor to offend the best of Fathers. If this examination is duly kept up morning and evening, or at least once a day, it will scarcely be possible for anyone to sin in dying, or to die in sinning, or to be overtaken by delirium, or madness, or other mischances. And thus it will come about that, being well prepared for death, neither will the uncertainty of death hinder us, nor will the happiness of everlasting life fail us.