Memento Mori

Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

On my recent trip to France, I had the opportunity of visiting one of the most wondrous places on earth – an abbey-fortress built on a tiny island – Mont St Michel. At high tide, the sea surrounds Mont St-Michel, making it an impenetrable fortress surrounded by a natural moat, and at low tide this same water recedes as much as 11 miles from the Abbey. There are so many wonders that I can tell you about this beautiful Romanesque structure but one detail in particular caught my attention. Our guide pointed to what remained of a 13^th century fresco that once covered the entire wall of the infirmary – the place where sick monks came to be healed and where they died. What remains are three solemn and macabre figures – knights in various stages of aging and dying with the last a skeletal figure. The guide told us that what would have been painted on the other side of the wall were three other knights displaying youth, vigour and good health. Both sets of figures would be depicted as having a conversation. The one on the right (the deathly figures) reminding the other group (the healthy robust ones), that one day, the latter too will have to join the ranks of the former. It then occurred to me that this fresco was a “memento mori,” a memorial of death, that not all who pass through the doors of the infirmary will return the same way. Not all will recover. Death eventually comes to all.

Death is an amazing corrective to our disordered world, a world marred by the unfairness of discrimination, injustice, a growing and widening disparity between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the privileged and the disenfranchised. But then death comes to all, young and old, rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless. Death does not discriminate. It has this sign hung above its main gate, “INGREDIMVR CVNCTI, DIVES CVM PAVPERE MIXTVS”, “All Enter, the Rich and Poor Alike.” In the face of the delusion that our safety, sense of peace and stability is finally secured, comes the important reminder that hits us whenever we face death, “memento Mori,” “remember death”, and then everything is put into perspective once again.

Today’s liturgy is such a day – a day to remember the dead, a day to remember death. I honestly believe that nothing can be more graphic than the Spanish name used by the Mexicans, “Dia de los Muertos”, the Day of the Dead. Our traditional “All Souls Day” and the current, “the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed”, seems muted in comparison. Perhaps, this is due to our Anglophone preoccupation with substituting hard words and concepts with euphemisms. But by whatever name it is known, today is a day to remember the dead, a day to remember death. Think about it - this entire day is a “memento mori” for the living. The dead may have departed this world of ours, but they still stand as silent reminders of the path and door which we all must pass one day. They issue this warning, “Remember us, for one day you too will join our ranks.”

The whole business of memento mori is said to have begun as a part of the ritual of welcome given to Roman military leaders upon their return from victory in battle. Amid the cheers of adoring crowds, a slave was designated to approach the great general and intone: “Respice post te, hominem te memento” (“Look around! Remember you’re only a man!”). Mortal like the rest of us. Our achievements, our trophies, our monuments will one day all be reduced to dust. What remains is the immortal soul, therefore we should pay due attention to its health, to our spiritual and moral health, rather than just be concerned with our physical and material needs.

We have a bit of this, of course, every Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The reminder is a good one, and sometimes an impetus to head to Confession, because, as our Lord reminds us, “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” A certain amount of procrastination in life is okay, but not in this regard. We should never put off any opportunity to repent, to amend our ways, because “we know neither the day nor the hour.” It’s a reminder that the art of living well ought necessarily become the art of dying well.

We’re familiar with Christ’s admonition to be “in the world but not of it,” but we are also aware that too frequently, we seem to be lost to this world and all its allures. We delay any preparation for that final moment, sometimes even denying it, perhaps, living under the illusion (or delusion) that we and our works, our accomplishments, our trophies, are dipped in the waters of the River Styx, our invincibility secured. But it is this blindness that has become the Achilles’ heel of so many. In failing to face death, in choosing to forget that we are merely mortals, many have lost that opportunity to turn the story around.

Yes, immortality is within our reach. But its answer is not to be found in denial or other false substitutes. The secret of immortality is to be found in Christ alone, the One who died but who rose again, the One who conquered death through His loving self-sacrifice on the cross. Repentance, turning to our Lord, is what makes this elixir accessible to all, even to the most hardened sinner. So, today, is not just a day to remember the dead and to remember death. It is crucially important to remember Christ too.

Yes, today as the Church commemorates the death of all the faithful departed, today as we remember our loved ones who have passed, it is time to remember - “memento Mori.” It is a reminder that life is always a joust with Death, a spar with our mortality. It is an unfair match. Death is so much more powerful than the most powerful on this earth, even those who command armies and empires will finally have to bend their knee and acknowledge defeat at the end of their battle. But if one has died in Christ, if one has chosen to continue dying to himself in order that he may be configured more to Christ, then the tide can be turned, the outcome can be rewritten, the victory can be secured. With Christ by our side, we have no more fear of death, for we know that we will come out not as losers or the defeated, but as victors! Oblivion or perdition need not be the destiny of every mortal. The Church Triumphant, the company of all saints which we celebrated yesterday, awaits us.

Our loved ones, our friends, our brothers and sisters have died. Each has finished his or her respective race. Their battle with death has concluded. What is the outcome, we do not know with certainty but we can only hope and pray that it ends in victory, the victory which Christ promised to those who listen to His words and adhere to them. We cannot know the exact moment of our dying, but we can live in recognition of that moment, in readiness. If you wish to remember your loved ones and all the faithful departed today, first remember death.