Meditation for October 31, From Now On

At the death of his wife a great artist was overcome with bitter regret for not having told her enough how much he had esteemed, admired and loved her. "Oh that I still had some minutes to tell her."

Alas! It always goes that way. Before every deathbed one feels he could have shown more love to the one who leaves. . . . Too late!

"Why not avoid these regrets," counsels an author, "by giving from now on to the persons with whom we live this supplement of esteem or affection that we will vainly wish at their death to have given them while they were living?

"When all are sleeping, let us make the rounds of the rooms in thought, and imagine that those who rest there are dead. What reproaches would we not have to make to ourselves for certain actions that were left undone, for services that have not been ren­dered, for words which have not been pronounced, for a testi­mony of sympathy or affection which has not been given?"

But why fabricate fiction? Everyone is living, very much alive. All right, beginning tomorrow I will exert myself to give them the marks of esteem, to render them all the services, to testify to them all the love I should regret having so meagerly given them if death were to strike them tonight.

"O my God, teach me to be charitable, while I have the time, in order to avoid the regret of not having been so, when time will be no more."
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)