“Memento Mori”

This Latin phrase has been on my mind since the Lenten season began several weeks ago. Translated to English it means “remember that you will die” . Legend has it that as Roman generals rode on their chariots through the streets of Rome, being showered with praise for their great victories, they would be trailed by their slave who kept uttering this phrase to their master. It was done as a warning to those revered generals that even though they were at the peak of their power today, tomorrow they could fall and be brought down.

Early Christians took this phrase and adopted it for their religious purposes. They would engrave the phrase on a coin and keep it in their pocket as a symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Pondering the prospect of death emphasized to the Christian the emptiness and

Coin with “Memento Mori” phrase

fleetingness of earthly pleasures, luxuries, and achievements, and served to focus their thoughts on the more important eternal afterlife.

Another example of memento mori is provided by the Capuchin Chapel in Rome that I one day hope to visit. It contains the skeletal remains of more than 3,700 friars of the Capuchin religious order.  As the friars died, the oldest pre-deceased friars were exhumed to make room for the newly dead. In the 1600’s the order used the exhumed bones to construct several chapels under their church. The friars said the chapels were intended to be a silent reminder of the swift passage of life and of our own mortality. The entrance to the chapels bears the inscription:

“What you are now, we used to be; what we are now you will be.”

You can see these same thoughts put forward by the Catholic Church during the Lenten season. At the Ash Wednesday ceremony that begins the 40 days of Lent, the priest places ashes on the foreheads of the believers and utters the phrase:

“Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return“

For me it is instructive to occasionally remember that I will die. It helps to give my life some urgency knowing that my days here on earth are numbered – and it prompts me to examine my relationships with God, family, and neighbors; spurring me to act on those relationships that are in need of repair. Many people do not like to think about their mortality and live under the illusion that they will live lengthy lives – believing they will always have tomorrow to do the difficult things that they are putting off today. The truth is if you are unprepared to face death today, it is very unlikely that you will be tomorrow.

Wishing you all a “Good Lent” and hoping you find yourself at the end of this holy season better prepared for this life and the next…