the Sacraments if you are afraid he will refuse. Simply bring the priest
to the sick man, and he will attend to all the rest. Even if the person
should refuse--if he has been baptized in the Catholic religion--send
for the priest and explain to him the circumstances and dispositions of
the sick man. It would be terrible to let such persons die without the
Sacraments if there is any possibility of their receiving them. Even
when they refuse to see the priest it generally happens that after he
has once visited them, talked to them, and explained the benefits of the
Sacraments, they are better pleased than anyone else to see him coming
again.

Sometimes it is God's goodness that sends sickness to such persons, to
bring them back to His worship and the practice of their religion. What
does a good father generally do with an unruly child? He advises and
warns it, and when words have no effect, punishes it with the rod, not
because he wishes to see it suffer, but for its good, that it may give
up its evil habits and become an obedient, loving child. In like manner
God warns sinners by their conscience, by sermons they hear, by
accidents or deaths around about them, etc.; and when none of these
things have any effect on them, He sends them some affliction--He brings
them to a bed of sickness. He punishes them, as it were, with a rod.
This He does, not that He may see them suffer, but for their good; that
they may understand He is their Master, the only one who can give them
health; that all the doctors and all the friends and money in the world
could not save them if He determined that they should die. Then they
come to know that the world is not their friend; then they see things as
they really are, and begin to think of the next world, of eternity, etc.
Thus they again turn to God and to the practices of religion. Many
persons who reform and begin to lead good lives in sickness would never
have changed if God had left them always in good health. But you must
not think that all who are sick are so on account of sin. Sometimes very
holy persons are in a state of sickness, and then it is sent them that
they may bear it patiently, and have great merit before God for their
sufferings, and thus become more holy. Again, very small children who
have never sinned are sick, and then it is perhaps that their parents
may have merit for patiently taking care of them. I say that God
sometimes sends sickness to persons living in sin for the