This book is set out for two purposes. The first is to help us assist others prepare for death. The second is to help us prepare for death, because
"no man knows the day nor the hour."
Pope Saint Pius X advises all to make the following act of resignation: "O Lord, my God, from this moment with a tranquil and submissive heart, I accept from Thy hand the type of death that it shall please Thee to send me, with all its anguish, sufferings, and sorrows."
Preparing for death and helping others to prepare for death and especially when they are dying to make it home to Heaven is indeed a very important and good work. The first preparation we need to make is to get on the fast track to heaven through meditation, prayer, spiritual reading, study of the Faith, penance and mortification. Many spiritual works are available to aid us in this most important task, for to fail to arrive in Heaven means we have condemned ourselves to hell. Our goal must be to depart this life and arrive immediately in Heaven. Such preparation requires that we purge ourselves of all worldliness whatsoever. Purgatory is a completion of such purgation for those, who are not quite yet ready for heaven.
Our first question we must ask ourselves is this: "Am I ready here and now to be judged by Almighty God?" We need to prepare ourselves to be judged here and now. We are not promised next year, next month, next week or even the next moment. You may not finish reading this sentence, before THE SENTENCE is pronounced. Stop and make a perfect act of contrition with a resolution to go and sin no more with the help of God's grace.
In order to better enable us to help others in their last agony, let us prepare ourselves and make those preparations for death we should be making here and now. And it matter not whether we are twenty, fifty, eighty or a hundred, we must have our affairs in order, so that when we arrive at our last agony we can focus completely on the one thing important, eternity and arrive home in heaven safely and quickly. Until then, let us resolve to learn from this instruction and from our daily spiritual reading what we ought to be doing.
The Ritual gives instructions to priests on how to prepare someone to die well. "The priest shall then ascertain to what special temptations the sick man is subject and what erroneous opinions he holds, and shall prudently apply such suitable remedies as are necessary." In order to die well, let us take a day and follow the advice of Saint Alphonsus given below and devote it to preparing for death. What temptations am I most prone to? What do I need to do here and now to combat these temptations and overcome them. It is far better to overcome our evil inclinations now than to wait until we are weak and dying! "God showed to St. Teresa the place in hell to which she would have fallen if she had continued certain conversations and affections which were not sinful, but dangerous." 3 Let us consider this well. The road to hell is an easy one to get on to and to fall little by little from the life of virtue and grace. Had Teresa of Lisieux not given up these conversations and affections, we would not know of her. She would have slowly slid into venial sin, then a habit of venial sin and finally into mortal sin and been lost. What affections am I refusing to give up, that I ought to?
This book contains the prayers of Saints Gertrude and Mechtilde for a happy death as well as Saint John Eudes ten day exercise of preparation for death. Saint Joseph Cafasso also has some prayers and Saint Alphonsus provides us with a good instruction. The Act of Resignation to the death God sends us is also provided together with the prayer that Saint Pius X gave a plenary indulgence to. The prayers from the Roman Ritual with their instructions are also provided to help in preparing for death. And finally the Office for the Dead comes after the prayers.