Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for. So we're in the first few days of Lent and we're dedicating this time to going through systematically the most important

teachings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, the two great masters of the spiritual life.

Now every Christian knows that this life is preparation for the next one.

And there's a certain sense in which you can tell how you're doing,

particularly in your spiritual life, based on your attitude about death.

Because of course death is where you say goodbye to this life and enter the next.

So if your hope is set on seeing God, well then, death will be the fulfillment of your hopes.

But if your hopes are set on things of this world,

well, death means the end of those things.

In which case death will be the terrible disappointment of all your hopes.

John of the Cross writes,

Accordingly, the soul does not fear death when she loves God.

Rather, she desires it.

Yet sinners are always fearful of death.

They foresee that death will take away everything and

bring them all evils. Since sinners love the life of this world intensely and have little love for that of the other,

they have an intense fear of death. But the soul that loves God lives more in the next life than in this, and thus takes little account of this earthly life. So I guess the question is, do you want to be someone who feels

despair and the end of all your hopes when you die?

Or do you want to be happy and peaceful at death

because you know that what you've always longed for

is right around the corner.

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