1235. What the goals of a person's life are becomes evident during illnesses, when death threatens
Whatever people love, they fear to lose. Therefore, during sicknesses especially, when death is near, it can be learned what they have loved, or what someone's goals in life have been. If, for example, they have striven for distinctions, and found in them their highest delight, then they are very afraid of dying. On their deathbed they also talk about their favorite things, and cannot abstain from busying themselves with them. Thus they are still absorbed with themselves.
Likewise in the case of one who has found his or her highest delight in possessions, profits, and other worldly values. They then keep their thought on them, disposing of them at the point of death by making a will and the like; while one who cares nothing for those things considers them of no importance, thinking only of eternal salvation and regarding them as of little value, not worth mentioning - even if it were the whole world [that one possessed].
1235. WHAT THE ENDS OF A MAN'S LIFE ARE CAN BE EVIDENT IN DISEASE WHEN DEATH IS IMMINENT
Whatever a man loves, that he fears to lose, and therefore in disease when death is imminent, it can especially be known what he has loved, or what have been his ends during his life. Thus if he sought after honors and placed his delight in them, he then very greatly fears death, and on his death-bed he also speaks of the things from which he had delight, so that he does not abstain from these affairs, being still devoted to himself. In like manner also he who places his delight in possessions, gains, and other mundane things has his thought fixed on them, and at the point of death he disposes of them by testament and like means. Whereas he who cares nothing about such matters and regards them as of no account, thinks only of eternal salvation, and esteems other things as utterly valueless and thus not worthy of mention, even though they be the whole world.
1235. Quales fines vitae sint constare potest in morbis dum mors imminet
Quicquid amat homo, hoc timet amittere, ideo in morbis dum mors imminet, imprimis sciri potest, quae amavit, seu qui fines in vita, ut si affectat honores, ac in iis delitias posuit, tunc maxime timet mori, tum quoque in mortis lecto loquitur de similibus, ex quibus habuit delitias, sic ut non abstineant a similibus negotiis, ita addictus est usque sibi; similiter etiam qui in possessionibus, lucris, aliisque mundanis delitias habet, tunc cogitatione iisdem inhaeret, ac disponit in puncto mortis de iis, per testamenta et similia, at vero qui talia nihil curat, is floccipendit ea, et modo de salute aeterna cogitat, ac caetera pro vilissimis aestimat, sic ut non dignis memoratu, si vel foret universus mundus.