Chapter 40
The Son speaks: ”Do not be afraid, daughter: This sick woman will not die, for her works are pleasing to me.” When the woman did die, the Son said again: ”Do you see, daughter? What I told you was true: The woman is not dead, for her glory is great. The separation of body and soul is for the righteous no more than a dream, for they wake up to life eternal. That which should be called death is when the soul lives separated from the body in an eternal death.
There are many people who, while not mindful of the life to come, do wish to die a Christian death. Now, what does a Christian death mean, if not to die as I died: innocently, willingly, and patiently? Am I then contemptible because my death was contemptible and harsh? Or are my chosen ones foolish, because they had to bear contemptible sufferings? Or was this the will of fortune or did the movement of the stars cause it? Of course not. I and my chosen ones did indeed suffer harshly, but in order to show by word and example that the way to heaven is difficult, and in order to make people realize fully how necessary purification is for the wicked, seeing that the innocent elect suffered so greatly.
Know, then, that a person dies a contemptible and evil death when he dies while living a dissolute life and with the intention of sinning, when he has worldly success and desires to live for a long time but does not remember to give thanks to God. A person lives and dies happily who loves God with his whole heart, though he may be struck down by a despicable death or afflicted by a chronic illness, because his harsh death lessens his sins as well as the punishment for sin and increases his reward.
Look, I will remind you of two men, both of whom died a despicable and bitter death according to human opinion. Yet, if they had not received such a death through my great mercy, they would not have been saved. However, because the Lord does not twice smite the contrite of heart, both of them attained their crown.
This is why the friends of God should not be saddened if they suffer violent temporal pain or die a bitter death. It is a blessed thing to weep for a time and to be troubled in this world so as not to come to the heaviest purgatory, where there will be no escape and no more time for working.”
The Mother's words to the daughter about how priests with lawful faculties of absolution, no matter what kind of sinners they themselves are, are able to absolve from sins; the same applies to the sacrament of the Eucharist.
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