We love this life despite the fact that it is vanishing, slipping away with equal speed in our youth and in our declining years. So how much better is it for us to hold onto something secure, the life that we will enjoy when this life is over? After all, what is really long if it comes to an end? Moreover, this life is not only short; it is also uncertain. We can die at any age. Therefore, it is just good sense to kneel humbly before God, to confess our sins and groan over them, to tell our Divine Doctor of our sickness so that we may be cured.

–Augustine, Sermon 360B.6