Patience - January 14

Patience
Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings

WISHES ABOUT DEATH

I wish to have no wishes left,
But to leave all to Thee;
And yet I wish that Thou shouldst will
Things that I wish should be.

And these two wills I feel within,
When on my death I muse:
But Lord! I have a death to die,
And not a death to choose.

Why should I choose? for in Thy love
Most surely I descry
A gentler death than I myself
Should dare to ask to die.

But Thou wilt not disdain to hear
What those few wishes are,
Which I abandon to Thy love,
And to Thy wiser care.

All graces I would crave to have,
Calmly absorbed in one,­
A perfect sorrow for my sins,
And duties left undone.

All Sacraments and church-blest things
I fain would have around,
A priest beside me, and the hope
Of consecrated ground.

But, most of all, Thy Mother, Lord!
I long to have with me,
With all her nameless offices
Around my bed to be.

I would the light of reason, Lord!
Up to the last might shine,
That my own hands might hold my soul
Until it passed to Thine.

And I would pass in silence, Lord!
No brave words on my lips,
Lest pride should cloud my soul, and I
Should die in the eclipse.

But when, and where, and by what pain,­
All this is one to me:
I only long for such a death
As most shall honor Thee.
-Father Faber.
____________________
Compiled and Edited by Rev. F. X. Lasance
Author of "My Prayerbook," etc.
1937, Benziger Brothers
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See