A story for every day...

A few years ago, in a lovely countryside near Paris, a good Christian, a faithful servant of Joseph and Mary was about to die. Everything was beautiful for him on earth, everything was designed to bind him to life. A young wife, like him a fervent Christian, and four small children full of charm, surrounded him with their affection and devotion. Nevertheless, he was ready to sacrifice everything, and he thought only of dying well. A priest, a friend of the family, came several times to prepare his soul for the great journey of eternity. The day chosen by the sick man himself for the reception of the holy Viaticum having arrived, he had his room embellished and had a beautiful ivory Christ placed on a small, well decorated altar, with a little statue of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph on each side. Then, calling his children and looking at them with love, he said to them, “Go, my children, go to the garden, and pick the most beautiful flowers, it is Corpus Christi at our house today, the good Jesus is coming; throw flowers everywhere in His path, in the avenue, on the stairs and in my room.” These dear children obey and sow flowers everywhere. Jesus comes in the midst of lilies and roses: as He enters He blesses the sick man, He blesses the mother and the children who were praying and crying kneeling around His bed. This good Christian received communion with the fervor of an angel, his gaze fixed on the image of Joseph and Mary, and a few days later he went to Heaven still blessing his little children.

No doubt they will remember all their lives that they had the Feast of Corpus Christi in their house, that Jesus came there among the flowers and that their father breathed his last under the eyes of Mary and Joseph, and provided with the sacred Viaticum. Oh, the beautiful, precious death!