I Began To Meditate On My Own Death

September 22, 1991
Villa Cavaletti
Italy

"I began by making Romans 12:1-2 my Evening Prayer:

'I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercy of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.'

"To be transformed by the renewal of my mind, I need to see my sin by the pure grace of God. I doubt  that I've committed mortal sin in my life, one deserving of hell and being eternally cut off from a relationship with God. 

"Yet I'm aware of being a profoundly sinful man in the sense of my egotism. What came to me were Igantius' words in SpEx #189: 'self-love, self-will, self-interest', these are the manifestations of my sin.  Like all sinners, I tend to go along with God just fine until He crosses my will. Then my anger, born of pride, rises up as well as self-pity. I often react the same way to other people too--let them cross me, disrespect me or ignore me and I want to block them out of my life. I remember Jesus saying, 'Even the pagans love those who love them.'

"I find my sin in moments as when Jesus glanced at Peter right after Peter's betrayals.  Since to whom much has been given, much is expected, my hardness of heart and pride is just as bad or worse as those who 'go from one mortal sin to another' (#314) on a grosser level of evil and destruction...

"Began to pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary asking Mary to show me my sin. Since she and her Son are sinless, they know sin best because they know God and live pure love; so they easily see the absurdity, darkness, disorder and tragedy of sin.

"As I prayed the Rosary, I paused to consider the sins manifest in each decade of the Sorrowful Mysteries; from the raining down of blows, insults and spittle on the sinless flesh and heart of Jesus to the 5th Mystery, Jesus' death on the Cross. There it struck me that the heart of sin was the refusal to become seed. ('Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit...Unless you take up your Cross everyday, you cannot follow Me...') This summarizes our unbelief, pride and obstinate refusal to give ourselves and to lose ourselves in love and let God determine everything...

"Then I began to meditate on my own death. I am moderately afraid of death because it is a large act of faith. Very concrete faith, no room for rhetoric here, handing over my existence to an Invisible Being whom I believe to be there for me. While praying about this, the Lord said to me, 

" 'This will be easier if you practice now by handing more and more of your life over to Me. You tend to stay in a safe zone too much, trying to have it both ways, satisfying both the natural and the supernatural, keeping control and not abandoning yourself in total dependence on Me alone. After practicing more and becoming reassured of my Saving Presence, death will be easier to do.' "