From the Friars: Sister Death

The Liturgy of the Church could be called the Memory of the Mystical Body. Our memory is one of the things that makes us like God. He is Eternal where all is now; past, present, and future. We are limited to the present but can make the past and future present by the power of our memory. On Ash Wednesday we begin Lent, a time of penance and conversion, and we are visibly reminded that we are going to die. Remember that your dust and to dust you will return.

The Latin phrase “memento mori” means “remember you must die “and usually refers to objects that bring death to mind. It is also the name of a 1950’s novel by Catholic convert Muriel Spark. In a clever plot the author brings out how the elderly can fall prey to the pride and self-centeredness which keeps them from facing the truth of their mortality. In the book an anonymous caller causes havoc simply by saying: “Remember, you must die.” Recalling, and meditating on, the moment of our death can be, and should be, a very healthy and edifying activity. The police inspector Mortimer in the novel states about his nightly reflection on death: “no other practice so intensifies life.”

This year we remember the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis. He is often appropriately depicted in art with a skull, a common memento mori, as Sister Death was always before his eyes. The Capuchins, known as the strictest of Franciscans, have a church in Rome which is an unusual tourist attraction. In subterranean chapels below the church are the bones of close to 4,000 friars, carefully arranged in decorative or symbolic ways. A sign there reads: “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.”

At the moment of death we will stand before Jesus and our whole life will be present in an instant. There is still time to edit the video. We close with a verse from St. Francis’ great Canticle: “All praise be yours my Lord through Sister Death, from whose embrace no mortal can escape. …Happy those she finds doing Your Will. The second death can do no harm to them.”

Fr. Peter