"And yet, once our last hour has come, and our hearts have ceased to beat, everything will be finished for us and the time to merit as well as to demerit. We will present ourselves to Christ the Judge just as death finds us. Our cries of supplication, our tears, our sighs of repentance, which while still on earth would have won God’s heart, could have made us with the help of the sacraments, saints out of sinners, today is worthless; the time of mercy is passed, now begins the time of justice."  St. Pio of Pietrelcina ( Letters IV, p. 964 )