Now that the consideration of approaching death and of the other last things has been completed, it follows that he who is preparing to depart this world should set his house in order. For thus Isaiah admonished Hezekiah, saying: "Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live" (Isa. 38:1). From this trouble men living under religious rule are free, who can say with the Apostles: "Behold, we have left all things" (Matt. 19). One of these was St. Augustine, of whom Possidius writes in his Life: « He made no will, he says, for the poor man of Christ had nothing from which to make one; for although he was a bishop, yet after the manner of religious he retained nothing as his own. »
Moreover, a will should be made at the beginning of an illness, unless one has prudently made it beforehand; and they make no slight mistake who do not think about making a will until, as the sickness grows severe, they are compelled by relatives or friends — at which time they either begin to lose their reason, or at least do not arrange their affairs with the same prudence they would have used while they were in good health.
First of all, however, they must give thought to repaying whatever debts they may chance to be burdened with. Then they must leave their wealth entirely to those to whom they understand it belongs by right, and not allow themselves to be drawn toward persons they love more, if that would in any way be repugnant to justice. In matters that depend on their own discretion, let them look first to the glory of God, then to the needs of their neighbors. And if they happen to abound in riches which, as superfluous, they ought long ago to have distributed to the poor, let them not suppose they have satisfied their conscience merely by laying this before the priest along with their other sins and obtaining absolution, unless they have ordered those goods to be distributed to the poor, or better still, have distributed them themselves without delay. For it is the common opinion of the holy Fathers and the principal scholastic Doctors that superfluous goods are owed to the poor — a matter we treated in the previous book, chapter nine, and which is not to be repeated here. As for what they may give at their own discretion, let them consult devout men as to which works of charity are more pleasing to God, according to the place and the time; for in one place the building of a church or of a cemetery will be more urgent, elsewhere the dowering of poor maidens for marriage, elsewhere a multitude of the sick lying in the streets, elsewhere the ransom of captives. Finally, in this kind of distribution there is no better rule than "a sincere faith and a clear-sighted foresight," as St. Ambrose writes; or "charity joined with prudence, and prudence joined with charity" (De officiis, bk. 3, ch. 48; Pastoral Rule, pt. 3, adm. 21), as St. Gregory says. It seems, moreover, a matter of great importance that the alms given by the living, or ordered by the dying to be given, should above all be given at the time when the one who gives or orders them is pleasing to God; for then, by the merit of such good alms, the givers are received by good friends into everlasting dwellings (Luke 16), according to the promise of Christ recorded by Luke. But if they are given, or ordered to be given, by an ungodly man, then those alms are of no avail for eternal life — whatever his other merits may be — nor do they bring it about that the donors are received into everlasting dwellings. Therefore a prudent confessor, or his friends, should counsel the man who is conscious of having drawn up his will while he lay in mortal sin, that after a new confession has been made fully and duly he should confirm and approve, and hold as ratified, all that he had disposed in his will — and especially the alms to be bestowed after his death upon the Church or upon the poor.
Finally, it must be added that the man who in his will has enriched his neighbors with many gifts should not forget his own soul — especially since it can easily happen that it will not fly straight to heaven, but will be led away to the places of purgatory. He will therefore act prudently and devoutly if he orders part of his alms to be given to priests who will offer sacrifices to the Lord for his soul. For "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (2 Macc. 12), as is said in the books of Maccabees. From this passage St. Augustine gathers (On the Care for the Dead, ch. 4) that the souls of the dead are helped far more by the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ, if they were helped by the sacrifices of animals under the Old Testament.