List of points

Some people feel embittered all the time. Everything makes them uneasy. They go to sleep with a physical obsession: that this sleep, the only possible escape, is not going to last very long. They wake up with the unwelcome and disheartening feeling that they now have another day in front of them.

Many have forgotten that the Lord has placed us in the world on our way to eternal happiness. They do not realise that only those who walk on earth with the joy of the children of God will be able to attain it.

A true Christian is always ready to appear before God. Because, if he is fighting to live as a man of Christ, he is ready at every moment to fulfil his duty.

When facing death, be calm! I do not want you to have the cold stoicism of the pagan, but the fervour of a child of God who knows that life is changed, not taken away. —Dying?… Living!

He acquired a Doctorate in law and in philosophy, and was applying for a post as a professor at the University of Madrid. He had specialised in two demanding subjects and had done brilliantly in both. He sent word to me: he was ill, and wanted me to go and see him. I arrived at the lodgings where he was staying. He greeted me with the words: “Father, I am dying.” I comforted him affectionately. He wished to make a general confession. That very same night, he died.

An architect and a doctor helped me dress the corpse. —Seeing that young body, which soon began to decompose… the three of us agreed that two university qualifications were worth nothing compared to the definitive qualification which as a good Christian he had just obtained.

Everything can be put right… except death. And death puts everything right.

Death comes and cannot be avoided. What empty vanity it is, then, to centre our existence on this life. See how much many men and women suffer. Some suffer because life is coming to an end and it pains them to leave it; others because it is going on, and they are sick of it… In neither case is there room for the mistaken view that makes our passage through this world an end in itself.

One must leave that way of thinking behind and anchor oneself to another, an eternal one. A total change is required, to empty oneself of self-centred motives, which pass away, and to be renewed in Christ, who is eternal.

When you think about death, do not be afraid, in spite of your sins…For he already knows that you love him… and what stuff you are made of.

—If you seek him, he will welcome you as the father welcomed the prodigal son; but you have to seek him!

Non habemus hic manentem civitatem — our definitive home is not to be found on this earth. —And so that we don’t forget it, at the hour of death this truth appears crudely at times, in lack of understanding, say, or in persecution or in being despised. —But there is always a sense of loneliness, for even though we may be surrounded by affection, every person dies alone.

—Now is the time to untie all the bonds that bind us! Let us prepare ourselves at all times for that step which will bring us into the eternal presence of the Most Holy Trinity.

Time is our treasure, the “money” with which to buy eternity.

You were consoled by the idea that life is to be spent, burned in the service of God. —And spending ourselves entirely for him is how we shall be freed from death, which brings us the possession of Life.

That priest, a friend of ours, worked away while thinking of God, holding on to his paternal hand and helping others to make these fundamental ideas their own. That is why he said to himself: “When you die, all will be well, because He will continue to look after things.”

Don’t make a tragedy out of death, for it is not one. Only unloving children do not look forward to meeting their parents.