Monday, 27 March 2017

“Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” by H. P. Lovecraft (in English)



I

Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species - if separate species we be - for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world. If we knew what we are, we should do as Sir Arthur Jermyn did; and Arthur Jermyn soaked himself in oil and set fire to his clothing one night. No one placed the charred fragments in an urn or set a memorial to him who had been; for certain papers and a certain boxed object were found which made men wish to forget. Some who knew him do not admit that he ever existed.
            Arthur Jermyn went out on the moor and burned himself after seeing the boxed object which had come from Africa. It was this object, and not his peculiar personal appearance, which made him end his life. Many would have disliked to live if possessed of the peculiar features of Arthur Jermyn, but he had been a poet and scholar and had not minded. Learning was in his blood, for his great-grandfather, Sir Robert Jermyn, Bt., had been an anthropologist of note, whilst his great-great-great-grandfather, Sir Wade Jermyn, was one of the earliest explorers of the Congo region, and had written eruditely of its tribes, animals, and supposed antiquities. Indeed, old Sir Wade had possessed an intellectual zeal amounting almost to a mania; his bizarre conjectures on a prehistoric white Congolese civilisation earning him much ridicule when his book, Observation on the Several Parts of Africa, was published. In 1765 this fearless explorer had been placed in a madhouse at Huntingdon.
            Madness was in all the Jermyns, and people were glad there were not many of them. The line put forth no branches, and Arthur was the last of it. If he had not been, one can not say what he would have done when the object came. The Jermyns never seemed to look quite right - something was amiss, though Arthur was the worst, and the old family portraits in Jermyn House showed fine faces enough before Sir Wade’s time. Certainly, the madness began with Sir Wade, whose wild stories of Africa were at once the delight and terror of his few friends. It showed in his collection of trophies and specimens, which were not such as a normal man would accumulate and preserve, and appeared strikingly in the Oriental seclusion in which he kept his wife. The latter, he had said, was the daughter of a Portuguese trader whom he had met in Africa; and did not like English ways. She, with an infant son born in Africa, had accompanied him back from the second and longest of his trips, and had gone with him on the third and last, never returning. No one had ever seen her closely, not even the servants; for her disposition had been violent and singular. During her brief stay at Jermyn House she occupied a remote wing, and was waited on by her husband alone. Sir Wade was, indeed, most peculiar in his solicitude for his family; for when he returned to Africa he would permit no one to care for his young son save a loathsome black woman from Guinea. Upon coming back, after the death of Lady Jermyn, he himself assumed complete care of the boy.
            But it was the talk of Sir Wade, especially when in his cups, which chiefly led his friends to deem him mad. In a rational age like the eighteenth century it was unwise for a man of learning to talk about wild sights and strange scenes under a Congo moon; of the gigantic walls and pillars of a forgotten city, crumbling and vine-grown, and of damp, silent, stone steps leading interminably down into the darkness of abysmal treasure-vaults and inconceivable catacombs. Especially was it unwise to rave of the living things that might haunt such a place; of creatures half of the jungle and half of the impiously aged city - fabulous creatures which even a Pliny might describe with scepticism; things that might have sprung up after the great apes had overrun the dying city with the walls and the pillars, the vaults and the weird carvings. Yet after he came home for the last time Sir Wade would speak of such matters with a shudderingly uncanny zest, mostly after his third glass at the Knight’s Head; boasting of what he had found in the jungle and of how he had dwelt among terrible ruins known only to him. And finally he had spoken of the living things in such a manner that he was taken to the madhouse. He had shown little regret when shut into the barred room at Huntingdon, for his mind moved curiously. Ever since his son had commenced to grow out of infancy, he had liked his home less and less, till at last he had seemed to dread it. The Knight’s Head had been his headquarters, and when he was confined he expressed some vague gratitude as if for protection. Three years later he died.
            Wade Jermyn’s son Philip was a highly peculiar person. Despite a strong physical resemblance to his father, his appearance and conduct were in many particulars so coarse that he was universally shunned. Though he did not inherit the madness which was feared by some, he was densely stupid and given to brief periods of uncontrollable violence. In frame he was small, but intensely powerful, and was of incredible agility. Twelve years after succeeding to his title he married the daughter of his gamekeeper, a person said to be of gypsy extraction, but before his son was born joined the navy as a common sailor, completing the general disgust which his habits and misalliance had begun. After the close of the American war he was heard of as sailor on a merchantman in the African trade, having a kind of reputation for feats of strength and climbing, but finally disappearing one night as his ship lay off the Congo coast.
            In the son of Sir Philip Jermyn the now accepted family peculiarity took a strange and fatal turn. Tall and fairly handsome, with a sort of weird Eastern grace despite certain slight oddities of proportion, Robert Jermyn began life as a scholar and investigator. It was he who first studied scientifically the vast collection of relics which his mad grandfather had brought from Africa, and who made the family name as celebrated in ethnology as in exploration. In 1815 Sir Robert married a daughter of the seventh Viscount Brightholme and was subsequently blessed with three children, the eldest and youngest of whom were never publicly seen on account of deformities in mind and body. Saddened by these family misfortunes, the scientist sought relief in work, and made two long expeditions in the interior of Africa. In 1849 his second son, Nevil, a singularly repellent person who seemed to combine the surliness of Philip Jermyn with the hauteur of the Brightholmes, ran away with a vulgar dancer, but was pardoned upon his return in the following year. He came back to Jermyn House a widower with an infant son, Alfred, who was one day to be the father of Arthur Jermyn.
            Friends said that it was this series of griefs which unhinged the mind of Sir Robert Jermyn, yet it was probably merely a bit of African folklore which caused the disaster. The elderly scholar had been collecting legends of the Onga tribes near the field of his grandfather’s and his own explorations, hoping in some way to account for Sir Wade’s wild tales of a lost city peopled by strange hybrid creatures. A certain consistency in the strange papers of his ancestor suggested that the madman’s imagination might have been stimulated by native myths. On October 19, 1852, the explorer Samuel Seaton called at Jermyn House with a manuscript of notes collected among the Ongas, believing that certain legends of a gray city of white apes ruled by a white god might prove valuable to the ethnologist. In his conversation he probably supplied many additional details; the nature of which will never be known, since a hideous series of tragedies suddenly burst into being. When Sir Robert Jermyn emerged from his library he left behind the strangled corpse of the explorer, and before he could be restrained, had put an end to all three of his children; the two who were never seen, and the son who had run away. Nevil Jermyn died in the successful defence of his own two-year-old son, who had apparently been included in the old man’s madly murderous scheme. Sir Robert himself, after repeated attempts at suicide and a stubborn refusal to utter an articulate sound, died of apoplexy in the second year of his confinement.
            Sir Alfred Jermyn was a baronet before his fourth birthday, but his tastes never matched his title. At twenty he had joined a band of music-hall performers, and at thirty-six had deserted his wife and child to travel with an itinerant American circus. His end was very revolting. Among the animals in the exhibition with which he travelled was a huge bull gorilla of lighter colour than the average; a surprisingly tractable beast of much popularity with the performers. With this gorilla Alfred Jermyn was singularly fascinated, and on many occasions the two would eye each other for long periods through the intervening bars. Eventually Jermyn asked and obtained permission to train the animal, astonishing audiences and fellow performers alike with his success. One morning in Chicago, as the gorilla and Alfred Jermyn were rehearsing an exceedingly clever boxing match, the former delivered a blow of more than the usual force, hurting both the body and the dignity of the amateur trainer. Of what followed, members of “The Greatest Show On Earth” do not like to speak. They did not expect to hear Sir Alfred Jermyn emit a shrill, inhuman scream, or to see him seize his clumsy antagonist with both hands, dash it to the floor of the cage, and bite fiendishly at its hairy throat. The gorilla was off its guard, but not for long, and before anything could be done by the regular trainer, the body which had belonged to a baronet was past recognition.


II

Arthur Jermyn was the son of Sir Alfred Jermyn and a music-hall singer of unknown origin. When the husband and father deserted his family, the mother took the child to Jermyn House; where there was none left to object to her presence. She was not without notions of what a nobleman’s dignity should be, and saw to it that her son received the best education which limited money could provide. The family resources were now sadly slender, and Jermyn House had fallen into woeful disrepair, but young Arthur loved the old edifice and all its contents. He was not like any other Jermyn who had ever lived, for he was a poet and a dreamer. Some of the neighbouring families who had heard tales of old Sir Wade Jermyn’s unseen Portuguese wife declared that her Latin blood must be showing itself; but most persons merely sneered at his sensitiveness to beauty, attributing it to his music-hall mother, who was socially unrecognised. The poetic delicacy of Arthur Jermyn was the more remarkable because of his uncouth personal appearance. Most of the Jermyns had possessed a subtly odd and repellent cast, but Arthur’s case was very striking. It is hard to say just what he resembled, but his expression, his facial angle, and the length of his arms gave a thrill of repulsion to those who met him for the first time.
            It was the mind and character of Arthur Jermyn which atoned for his aspect. Gifted and learned, he took highest honours at Oxford and seemed likely to redeem the intellectual fame of his family. Though of poetic rather than scientific temperament, he planned to continue the work of his forefathers in African ethnology and antiquities, utilising the truly wonderful though strange collection of Sir Wade. With his fanciful mind he thought often of the prehistoric civilisation in which the mad explorer had so implicitly believed, and would weave tale after tale about the silent jungle city mentioned in the latter’s wilder notes and paragraphs. For the nebulous utterances concerning a nameless, unsuspected race of jungle hybrids he had a peculiar feeling of mingled terror and attraction, speculating on the possible basis of such a fancy, and seeking to obtain light among the more recent data gleaned by his great-grandfather and Samuel Seaton amongst the Ongas.
            In 1911, after the death of his mother, Sir Arthur Jermyn determined to pursue his investigations to the utmost extent. Selling a portion of his estate to obtain the requisite money, he outfitted an expedition and sailed for the Congo. Arranging with the Belgian authorities for a party of guides, he spent a year in the Onga and Kahn country, finding data beyond the highest of his expectations. Among the Kaliris was an aged chief called Mwanu, who possessed not only a highly retentive memory, but a singular degree of intelligence and interest in old legends. This ancient confirmed every tale which Jermyn had heard, adding his own account of the stone city and the white apes as it had been told to him.
            According to Mwanu, the gray city and the hybrid creatures were no more, having been annihilated by the warlike N’bangus many years ago. This tribe, after destroying most of the edifices and killing the live beings, had carried off the stuffed goddess which had been the object of their quest; the white ape-goddess which the strange beings worshipped, and which was held by Congo tradition to be the form of one who had reigned as a princess among these beings. Just what the white apelike creatures could have been, Mwanu had no idea, but he thought they were the builders of the ruined city. Jermyn could form no conjecture, but by close questioning obtained a very picturesque legend of the stuffed goddess.
            The ape-princess, it was said, became the consort of a great white god who had come out of the West. For a long time they had reigned over the city together, but when they had a son, all three went away. Later the god and princess had returned, and upon the death of the princess her divine husband had mummified the body and enshrined it in a vast house of stone, where it was worshipped. Then he departed alone. The legend here seemed to present three variants. According to one story, nothing further happened save that the stuffed goddess became a symbol of supremacy for whatever tribe might possess it. It was for this reason that the N’bangus carried it off. A second story told of a god’s return and death at the feet of his enshrined wife. A third told of the return of the son, grown to manhood - or apehood or godhood, as the case might be - yet unconscious of his identity. Surely the imaginative blacks had made the most of whatever events might lie behind the extravagant legendry.
            Of the reality of the jungle city described by old Sir Wade, Arthur Jermyn had no further doubt; and was hardly astonished when early in 1912 he came upon what was left of it. Its size must have been exaggerated, yet the stones lying about proved that it was no mere Negro village. Unfortunately no carvings could be found, and the small size of the expedition prevented operations toward clearing the one visible passageway that seemed to lead down into the system of vaults which Sir Wade had mentioned. The white apes and the stuffed goddess were discussed with all the native chiefs of the region, but it remained for a European to improve on the data offered by old Mwanu. M. Verhaeren, Belgian agent at a trading-post on the Congo, believed that he could not only locate but obtain the stuffed goddess, of which he had vaguely heard; since the once mighty N’bangus were now the submissive servants of King Albert’s government, and with but little persuasion could be induced to part with the gruesome deity they had carried off. When Jermyn sailed for England, therefore, it was with the exultant probability that he would within a few months receive a priceless ethnological relic confirming the wildest of his great-great-great-grandfather’s narratives - that is, the wildest which he had ever heard. Countrymen near Jermyn House had perhaps heard wilder tales handed down from ancestors who had listened to Sir Wade around the tables of the Knight’s Head.
            Arthur Jermyn waited very patiently for the expected box from M. Verhaeren, meanwhile studying with increased diligence the manuscripts left by his mad ancestor. He began to feel closely akin to Sir Wade, and to seek relics of the latter’s personal life in England as well as of his African exploits. Oral accounts of the mysterious and secluded wife had been numerous, but no tangible relic of her stay at Jermyn House remained. Jermyn wondered what circumstance had prompted or permitted such an effacement, and decided that the husband’s insanity was the prime cause. His great-great-great-grandmother, he recalled, was said to have been the daughter of a Portuguese trader in Africa. No doubt her practical heritage and superficial knowledge of the Dark Continent had caused her to flout Sir Wade’s tales of the interior, a thing which such a man would not be likely to forgive. She had died in Africa, perhaps dragged thither by a husband determined to prove what he had told. But as Jermyn indulged in these reflections he could not but smile at their futility, a century and a half after the death of both his strange progenitors.
            In June, 1913, a letter arrived from M. Verhaeren, telling of the finding of the stuffed goddess. It was, the Belgian averred, a most extraordinary object; an object quite beyond the power of a layman to classify. Whether it was human or simian only a scientist could determine, and the process of determination would be greatly hampered by its imperfect condition. Time and the Congo climate are not kind to mummies; especially when their preparation is as amateurish as seemed to be the case here. Around the creature’s neck had been found a golden chain bearing an empty locket on which were armorial designs; no doubt some hapless traveller’s keepsake, taken by the N’bangus and hung upon the goddess as a charm. In commenting on the contour of the mummy’s face, M. Verhaeren suggested a whimsical comparison; or rather, expressed a humorous wonder just how it would strike his corespondent, but was too much interested scientifically to waste many words in levity. The stuffed goddess, he wrote, would arrive duly packed about a month after receipt of the letter.
            The boxed object was delivered at Jermyn House on the afternoon of August 3, 1913, being conveyed immediately to the large chamber which housed the collection of African specimens as arranged by Sir Robert and Arthur. What ensued can best be gathered from the tales of servants and from things and papers later examined. Of the various tales, that of aged Soames, the family butler, is most ample and coherent. According to this trustworthy man, Sir Arthur Jermyn dismissed everyone from the room before opening the box, though the instant sound of hammer and chisel showed that he did not delay the operation. Nothing was heard for some time; just how long Soames cannot exactly estimate, but it was certainly less than a quarter of an hour later that the horrible scream, undoubtedly in Jermyn’s voice, was heard. Immediately afterward Jermyn emerged from the room, rushing frantically toward the front of the house as if pursued by some hideous enemy. The expression on his face, a face ghastly enough in repose, was beyond description. When near the front door he seemed to think of something, and turned back in his flight, finally disappearing down the stairs to the cellar. The servants were utterly dumbfounded, and watched at the head of the stairs, but their master did not return. A smell of oil was all that came up from the regions below. After dark a rattling was heard at the door leading from the cellar into the courtyard; and a stable-boy saw Arthur Jermyn, glistening from head to foot with oil and redolent of that fluid, steal furtively out and vanish on the black moor surrounding the house. Then, in an exaltation of supreme horror, everyone saw the end. A spark appeared on the moor, a flame arose, and a pillar of human fire reached to the heavens. The house of Jermyn no longer existed.
            The reason why Arthur Jermyn’s charred fragments were not collected and buried lies in what was found afterward, principally the thing in the box. The stuffed goddess was a nauseous sight, withered and eaten away, but it was clearly a mummified white ape of some unknown species, less hairy than any recorded variety, and infinitely nearer mankind - quite shockingly so. Detailed description would be rather unpleasant, but two salient particulars must be told, for they fit in revoltingly with certain notes of Sir Wade Jermyn’s African expeditions and with the Congolese legends of the white god and the ape-princess. The two particulars in question are these: the arms on the golden locket about the creature’s neck were the Jermyn arms, and the jocose suggestion of M. Verhaeren about certain resemblance as connected with the shrivelled face applied with vivid, ghastly, and unnatural horror to none other than the sensitive Arthur Jermyn, great-great-great-grandson of Sir Wade Jermyn and an unknown wife. Members of the Royal Anthropological Institute burned the thing and threw the locket into a well, and some of them do not admit that Arthur Jermyn ever existed.

Saturday, 25 March 2017

"The Bitch and Her Whelps" by Aesop (translated into English)

          A bitch, ready to whelp, earnestly begged a shepherd for a place where she might litter. When her request was granted, she besought permission to rear her puppies in the same spot. The shepherd again consented. But at last the bitch, protected by the bodyguard of her whelps, who had now grown up and were able to defend themselves, asserted her exclusive right to the place and would not permit the shepherd to approach. 

Friday, 24 March 2017

"Apparecchio alla Morte" by St Alfonso Maria de Liguori (in Italian) - XI



CONSIDERAZIONE X - MEZZI PER APPARECCHIARSI ALLA MORTE

«Memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis» (Eccli. 7. 40).


PUNTO I
            Tutti confessano che si ha da morire, e morire una sola volta; e che non vi è cosa di maggiore conseguenza di questa, poiché dal punto della morte dipende l'esser beato, o disperato per sempre. Tutti sanno poi che dal viver bene o male dipende il fare una buona o mala morte. E poi come va che dalla maggior parte de' cristiani si vive, come non si avesse mai a morire, o come poco importasse il morir bene o male? Si vive male, perché non si pensa alla morte: «Memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis». Bisogna persuaderci che 'l tempo della morte non è proprio per aggiustare i conti, affin di assicurare il gran negozio dell'eterna salute. I prudenti del mondo negli affari di terra prendono a tempo opportuno tutte le misure per ottenere quel guadagno, quel posto, quel matrimonio; per la sanità del corpo non differiscono punto i rimedi necessari. Che diresti di taluno, che dovesse andare a qualche duello o concorso di cattedra, se volesse attendere ad istruirsi, quando è già arrivato il tempo? Non sarebbe pazzo quel capitano, che in tempo dell'assedio si riserbasse a far la provvisione de' viveri e dell'armi? Non pazzo quel nocchiero, che trascurasse a provvedersi d'ancore e di gomene sino al tempo della tempesta? Tale appunto è quel cristiano, che si riduce ad aggiustar la coscienza, quando è arrivata la morte. «Cum interitus quasi tempestas ingruerit... tunc invocabunt me, et non exaudiam; comedent fructus vitae suae» (Prov. 1. 27). Il tempo della morte è tempo di tempesta, di confusione; allora i peccatori chiamano Dio in aiuto, ma per solo timore dell'inferno, a cui si vedon vicini, senza vera conversione, e perciò Dio non gli esaudisce. E perciò anche giustamente non assaggeranno allora, che i soli frutti della loro mala vita. «Quae seminaverit homo, haec et metet». Eh che non basta allora prendere i sagramenti; bisogna morire odiando il peccato e amando Dio sopra ogni cosa; ma come odierà i piaceri illeciti, chi sino ad allora li avrà amati? come amerà Dio allora sopra ogni cosa, chi sino a quel punto avrà amate le creature più di Dio?
            Il Signore chiama stolte quelle vergini (perché tali erano) che voleano apparecchiar le lampane, quando già veniva lo sposo. Tutti temono la morte subitanea, perché allora non vi è tempo di aggiustare i conti. Tutti confessano che i Santi sono stati i veri savi, perché si sono preparati alla morte, prima che giungesse la morte. E noi che facciamo? vogliamo aspettare ad apparecchiarci a morir bene, quando la morte sarà già vicina? Bisogna dunque fare al presente quel che vorremo aver fatto in morte. Oh che pena dà allora la memoria del tempo malamente speso! tempo dato da Dio per meritare, ma tempo ch'è passato e non torna più. Che affanno darà allora il sentirsi dire: «Iam non poteris amplius villicare». Non ci è più tempo di far penitenza, di frequentar sagramenti, di sentir prediche, di visitare Gesu-Cristo nelle chiese, di fare orazione; quel ch'è fatto, è fatto. Vi bisognerebbe allora una mente più sana, un tempo più quieto per far la confessione, come va fatta, per risolvere diversi punti di scrupoli gravi, e così quietar la coscienza; ma «tempus non erit amplius».

Affetti e preghiere
            Ah mio Dio, s'io moriva in quelle notti che sapete, dove al presente starei? Vi ringrazio di avermi aspettato, e vi ringrazio per tutti quelli momenti, in cui avrei avuto a star nell'inferno da quel primo momento, in cui vi offesi. Deh datemi luce, e fatemi conoscere il gran torto che vi ho fatto in perdere volontariamente la grazia vostra, che Voi mi avete meritata col sagrificarvi per me su d'una croce. Deh Gesù mio, perdonatemi, mentr'io mi pento con tutto il cuore sopra ogni male di avere disprezzato Voi, bontà infinita. Io spero che già mi abbiate perdonato. Deh aiutatemi, o mio Salvatore, acciocché io non vi perda più. Ah mio Signore, s'io tornassi ad offendervi dopo tanti lumi e tante grazie da Voi ricevute, non meriterei un inferno a posta per me? Deh non lo permettete per li meriti di quel sangue, che avete sparso per amor mio. Datemi la santa perseveranza, datemi il vostro amore. V'amo, o sommo bene, e non voglio più lasciare d'amarvi sino alla morte. Dio mio, abbiate pietà di me per amore di Gesu-Cristo.
            Abbiate ancora pietà di me, o speranza mia Maria; raccomandatemi a Dio; le vostre raccomandazioni non hanno ripulsa appresso quel Signore, che tanto v'ama.


PUNTO II
Presto dunque, fratello mio, giacché è certo che avete da morire, mettetevi a' piedi del Crocifisso, ringraziatelo del tempo, che vi dà per sua misericordia di poter aggiustare la vostra coscienza; e poi date una rivista a tutti gli sconcerti della vita passata, specialmente a quelli della gioventù. Date un'occhiata a i divini precetti, esaminate gl'impieghi esercitati, le conversazioni, che avete frequentate, e notatevi in iscritto le vostre mancanze, e fatevi una confession generale di tutta la vostra vita, se non l'avete fatta ancora. Oh quanto giova la confessione generale per mettere in buon sistema la vita d'un cristiano! Pensate che son conti per l'eternità, e perciò fateli come ora stessivo in punto di dovergli rendere a Gesu-Cristo giudice. Discacciate dal cuore ogni affetto malvagio, ogni rancore: toglietevi ora ogni scrupolo di roba d'altri, di fama tolta, di scandali dati, e risolvete di fuggir quelle occasioni, in cui potete perdere Dio. Pensate che quel che ora vi pare difficile, in punto di morte vi parerà impossibile.
            Ciò che importa, risolvete di mettere in pratica i mezzi per conservarvi in grazia di Dio. I mezzi sono la Messa ogni giorno, la meditazione delle verità eterne, la frequenza della confessione e Comunione almeno ogn'otto giorni, la visita ogni giorno al SS. Sagramento e alla divina Madre, la congregazione, la lezione spirituale, l'esame di coscienza ogni sera, qualche divozione speciale a Maria SS. con fare il digiuno nel sabato; e sopra tutto proponete di spesso raccomandarvi a Dio ed alla B. Vergine con invocare spesso, e specialmente in tempo di tentazioni, i nomi sagrosanti di Gesù e di Maria. Questi sono i mezzi, che possono ottenervi una buona morte e la salute eterna.
            Il far ciò sarà un gran segno per voi della vostra predestinazione. Ed in quanto poi al passato, confidate al sangue di Gesu-Cristo, il quale vi dona ora questi lumi, perché vi vuol salvo, e confidate all'intercessione di Maria che questi lumi v'impetra. Con tal registro di vita e confidenza in Gesù e Maria, oh come Dio aiuta, e che forza acquista l'anima! Presto dunque, lettor mio, datevi tutto a Dio che vi chiama; e cominciate a goder quella pace, di cui sinora per vostra colpa siete stato privo. E quale pace maggiore può sentire un'anima che 'l poter dire in porsi a letto la sera: Se stanotte viene la morte, spero di morire in grazia di Dio! Quale consolazione è l'udire lo strepito de' tuoni, vedere tremar la terra e star aspettando con rassegnazione la morte, se Dio così dispone!

Affetti e preghiere
            Ah Signor mio, quanto vi ringrazio della luce, che mi date. Io v'ho lasciato tante volte, vi ho voltato le spalle; ma Voi non mi avete abbandonato; se mi aveste abbandonato, io sarei restato cieco, quale ho voluto essere per lo passato: sarei ostinato nel mio peccato, e non avrei né volontà di lasciarlo, né volontà d'amarvi. Ora mi sento un gran dolore di avervi offeso, un gran desiderio di stare in grazia vostra: sento un abborrimento a quei gusti maledetti, che mi hanno fatto perdere la vostra amicizia: tutte son grazie, che da Voi mi vengono, e mi fanno sperare che Voi volete perdonarmi e salvarmi. Giacché dunque Voi con tanti peccati miei non mi avete abbandonato e mi volete salvo; ecco Signore, io tutto a Voi mi dono, mi pento sopra ogni male d'avervi offeso, e propongo di perdere prima mille volte la vita, che la grazia vostra. V'amo, mio sommo bene: v'amo, Gesù mio morto per me: e spero al sangue vostro, che non permetterete ch'io abbia a separarmi più da voi. No, Gesù mio, non vi voglio perdere. Vi voglio amar sempre in vita, vi voglio amare in morte, vi voglio amare per tutta l'eternità. Conservatemi Voi dunque sempre e accrescetemi l'amore verso di Voi; ve lo cerco per li vostri meriti.
            Maria speranza mia, pregate Gesù per me.


PUNTO III
            In oltre, bisogna procurare di ritrovarci in ogni ora quali desideriamo di ritrovarci in morte. «Beati mortui, qui in Domino moriuntur» (Apoc. 14). Dice S. Ambrogio che quelli muoiono bene, che al tempo della morte si trovano già morti al mondo, cioè distaccati da quei beni, da cui la morte allora a forza avrà da separarci. Sicché bisogna che da ora accettiamo lo spoglio delle robe, la separazione da' parenti e da tutte le cose di questa terra. Se ciò non lo facciamo volontariamente in vita, l'avremo a fare necessariamente in morte, ma allora con estremo dolore e con pericolo della salute eterna. E con ciò avverte S. Agostino che giova molto per morir quieto l'aggiustare in vita gl'interessi temporali, facendo da ora la disposizione de' beni che si han da lasciare, acciocché in morte la persona s'occupi solo a stringersi con Dio. Allora è bene discorrere solamente di Dio e del paradiso. Son troppo preziosi quegli ultimi momenti, per non dissiparli in pensieri di terra. In morte si compisce la corona degli eletti, poiché allora si fa forse la migliore raccolta di meriti in abbracciare quei dolori e quella morte con rassegnazione ed amore.
            Ma non potrà avere questi buoni sentimenti in morte, chi non gli ha esercitati in vita. A tal fine alcuni divoti con molto loro profitto praticano di rinnovare in ogni mese la Protesta della morte cogli atti cristiani, dopo essersi confessati e comunicati figurandosi di trovarsi già moribondi vicini ad uscire di vita. («Nel nostro libretto della Visita al SS. Sagramento, vi è questa Protesta cogli atti, che può leggersi in poco tempo, perché è breve»). Ciò che non si fa in vita, è molto difficile farlo in morte. La gran serva di Dio suor Catarina di S. Alberto Teresiana morendo sospirava e dicea: Sorelle, io non sospiro per timor della morte, perché da 25 anni la sto aspettando, sospiro in vedere tanti ingannati, che menano la vita in peccato e si riducono a far pace con Dio in morte, quand'io appena posso pronunziare Gesù.
            Esaminate dunque, fratello mio, se ora tenete attaccato il cuore a qualche cosa di terra, a quella persona, a quell'onore, a quella casa, a quei danari, a quella conversazione, a quegli spassi; pensate che non siete eterno. L'avete da lasciare un giorno, e forse presto; e perché volete starvi attaccato, con porvi a rischio di fare una morte inquieta? Offerite da ora tutto a Dio, pronto a privarvene, quando a Lui piace. Se volete morir rassegnato, bisogna che da ora vi rassegniate in tutti gli accidenti contrari, che vi possono accadere, e vi spogliate degli affetti alle cose della terra. Mettetevi innanzi il punto della morte e disprezzerete tutto. «Facile contemnit omnia (dice S. Geronimo) qui semper se cogitat moriturum».
            Se non avete eletto ancora lo stato di vostra vita, eleggetevi quello stato che vorreste aver eletto, quando sarete in morte, e che vi farà fare una morte più contenta. Se poi già l'avete eletto, fate quel che vorreste aver fatto allora nel vostro stato. Fate come ogni giorno fosse l'ultimo di vostra vita, ed ogni azione l'ultima che fate, l'ultima orazione, l'ultima confessione, l'ultima comunione. Immaginatevi come in ogni ora vi trovaste moribondo, steso in un letto, e vi sentiste intimare quel «Proficiscere de hoc mundo». Questo pensiero oh quanto vi gioverà per ben camminare e distaccarvi dal mondo: «Beatus ille servus, quem, cum venerit Dominus eius, inveniet sic facientem» (Matth. 24. 46). Chi aspetta la morte ad ogni ora, ancorché morisse all'improvviso, non lascerà di morir bene.

Affetti e preghiere
            Ogni cristiano dee star preparato a dire in quel punto, in cui gli sarà data la nuova della morte, così: Dunque mio Dio, poche ore mi restano? voglio in queste amarvi quanto posso nella presente vita, per più amarvi nell'altra. Poco mi resta da offerirvi, vi offerisco questi dolori e 'l sagrificio della mia vita, in unione del sagrificio che vi fece per me Gesu-Cristo sulla croce. Signore, le pene che patisco son poche e leggiere, a fronte di quelle ch'io ho meritate: quali sono io le abbraccio in segno dell'amor che vi porto. Mi rassegno a tutti i castighi, che volete darmi in questa e nell'altra vita, purché io v'abbia ad amare in eterno. Punitemi quanto vi piace, ma non mi private del vostro amore. Conosco che non meriterei più d'amarvi, per avere io tante volte disprezzato il vostro amore; ma Voi non sapete discacciare un'anima pentita. Mi pento, o sommo bene, d'avervi offeso. V'amo con tutto il cuore, e tutto in voi confido. La vostra morte, o mio Redentore, è la speranza mia. Nelle vostre mani impiagate raccomando l'anima mia. «In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum; redemisti me, Domine Deus veritatis». O Gesù mio, voi avete dato il sangue per salvarmi, non permettete ch'io m'abbia a separare da Voi. V'amo, o Dio eterno, e spero amarvi in eterno.
            Maria Madre mia, aiutatemi in quel gran punto. Ora a voi consegno il mio spirito; dite al vostro Figlio che abbia pietà di me. A voi mi raccomando, liberatemi dell'inferno.


Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Quotes from C.S. Lewis (in English)


1) “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

2) “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

3) “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

4) “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

5) “God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”

6) “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

7) “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

8) “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

9) “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

10) “A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is… A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”

11) “Die before you die, there is no chance after.”

12) “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”

13) “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
14) “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

15) “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

16) “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.”

17) “Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”

18) “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

19) “God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker.”

Tuesday, 21 March 2017

"The Book of Exodus" - Chapter XXIV (translated into English)



Chapter 24

1 Moses himself was told, "Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, with Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You shall all worship at some distance, 2 but Moses alone is to come close to the LORD; the others shall not come too near, and the people shall not come up at all with Moses."
            3 When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all answered with one voice, "We will do everything that the LORD has told us." 4 Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and, rising early the next day, he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD, 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls; the other half he splashed on the altar. 7 Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people, who answered, "All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do." 8 Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his."
            9 Moses then went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, 10 and they beheld the God of Israel. Under his feet there appeared to be sapphire tilework, as clear as the sky itself. 11 Yet he did not smite these chosen Israelites. After gazing on God, they could still eat and drink.
            12 The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and, while you are there, I will give you the stone tablets on which I have written the commandments intended for their instruction." 13 So Moses set out with Joshua, his aide, and went up to the mountain of God. 14 The elders, however, had been told by him, "Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are staying with you. If anyone has a complaint, let him refer the matter to them." 15 After Moses had gone up, a cloud covered the mountain.
            16 The glory of the LORD settled upon Mount Sinai. The cloud covered it for six days, and on the seventh day he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD was seen as a consuming fire on the mountaintop. 18 But Moses passed into the midst of the cloud as he went up on the mountain; and there he stayed for forty days and forty nights.