Litany for a Happy Death
A historical litany entrusting the last stages of dying to Jesus’ mercy, followed by a prayer for a good conscience and peaceful death.
Historical edition. Historical claims and instructions are preserved as historical context.
Composed by a young Lady who was converted to the Catholic Faith, and afterwards died at eighteen, in the odour of sanctity.
O Lord Jesus, God of goodness, and Father of
mercies, I approach to thee with a contrite and
humble heart: to thee I recommend the last hour of
my life, and the decision of my eternal doom.
When my feet, benumbed with death, shall admonish
me that my mortal course is drawing to an end,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my eyes, dim and troubled at the approach of
death, shall fix themselves on thee, my last and
only support,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my face, pale and livid, shall inspire the
beholders with pity and dismay; when my hair,
bathed in the sweat of death, and stiffening on my
head, shall forebode my approaching end,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my ears, soon to be for ever shut to the
discourse of men, shall be opened to the
irrevocable decree which is to cut me off from the
number of the living,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my imagination, agitated by dreadful
spectres, shall be sunk in an abyss of anguish;
when my soul, affrighted with the sight of my
iniquities, and the terrors of thy judgments,
shall have to fight against the angel of darkness,
who will endeavour to conceal thy mercies from my
eyes, and to plunge me into despair,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me..
When my poor heart, yielding to the pressure, and
exhausted by its frequent struggles against the
enemies of its salvation, shall feel the pangs of
death,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When the last tear, the forerunner of my
dissolution, shall drop from my eyes, receive it
as a sacrifice of expiation for my sins; grant
that I may expire the victim of penance; and in
that dreadful moment,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my friends and relations, encircling my bed,
shall shed the tear of pity over me, and invoke
thy clemency in my behalf,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When I shall have lost the use of my senses; when
the world shall have vanished from my sight; when
my agonizing soul shall feel the sorrows of death,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my last sigh shall summon my soul to burst
from the embraces of the body, and to spring to
thee on the wings of impatience and desire,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When my soul, trembling on my lips, shall bid
adieu to the world, and leave my body lifeless,
pale, and cold, receive this separation as a
homage which I willingly pay to thy divine
Majesty; and in that last moment of my mortal
life,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
When at length my soul, admitted to thy presence,
shall first behold the splendour of thy Majesty,
reject me not, but receive me into thy bosom,
where I may for ever sing thy praises; and in that
moment, when eternity shall begin to me,
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.
Let Us Pray.
O God, who hast doomed all men to die, but hast concealed from all the hour of their death, grant that I may pass my days in the practice of holiness and justice, and that I may deserve to quit this world in the peace of a good conscience, and in the embraces of thy love: through Christ our Lord. Amen.