I agree with not knowing how long you have left to live.
Only God knows that.
That is the case with the vast majority of us.
There have been a few saints who were given to know the day
of their death in advance. But there has not been one of them
who has been unable to cope with the information.
God gives us suffering in this life, but He does not ever give us
suffering that we are unable to cope with, if we would only ask
for His grace to do so.
And God does not give us knowledge of our own time of death
in advance because we would not be able to deal with it -- it
would be too much for us. The knowledge of when we will die
is knowledge that would be too big of a burden for most of us.
It would, perhaps, be the occasion for weakness or sin,
especially that of despair, which is a very serious sin. Seeing
one's imminent demise coming in a few seconds might be
enough for many to evoke an act of perfect contrition, for
example, something that they may have practiced doing in life
but never had much success when there was a lot of time. But
under imminent catastrophe, the thought of sorrow and
repentance may arise instinctively with the chaos of disaster
at hand. In such way, what appears to be a thing of horror
like a plane crash or a head-on collision, might in fact be the
infinite mercy of God in action, taking a soul when she is most
able to be perfectly contrite.
Therefore, while it is true that God alone knows when the end
of our world will come, that is, for each and every one of us, it
is also true that God might see fit to let us know when that will
be, but only if we are capable of coping with the news.
I don't think there has ever been a saint who was unable to
cope with the advance knowledge of his own death, if that was
something that God gave to him. It would seem to be
impossible, after all, how could he have then been a saint, if he
had been unable to handle that knowledge?
And I'm sure someone has a list of the saints who knew long in
advance when they would die. While I have heard of a few of
them, I don't recall their names right now.
How about this: John says that God told him when he was
going to die. John tells his sister, Catherine, the news.
Catherine replies, "Oh, dear, that would be a lot to know. I
don't think I would want to know that, because it would scare
me too much. When did He say it would be, for you?" And
John answers, "I can't remember."
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Topic: REPENT and BELIEVE (Read 1038 times)