Episode Transcript  

One

The Church of the Bones

In an old section on the city of Rome, in the Barberini district, there’s a series of chapels made by Capuchin friars. And when I say that these chapels are made by Capuchin friars, I don’t just mean that they were designed by Capuchin friars. I mean that these chapels are actually built with the bodies of dead members of the Franciscans. More specifically, the chapels are jam-packed with bones. The altars are made of bones. The light fixtures are made of bones. The various images and representations on the walls are made of bones.

It’s called the “Church of the Bones,” and it feels like some wild scene from an Indiana Jones movie. But there’s a reason for this gruesome series of chapels. It’s not just an exercise in morbidity. It’s a spiritual reminder.

In the last chapel, there’s a plaque on the floor, engraved in marble. It speaks for the thousands of bones in that place, and it says, “What you are, we once were. What we are, you soon shall be.”

And the truth is, that’s not a bad thing to remember.

Two

Memento Mori

There is an important phrase the Bible tells us to remember, that phrase is “Memento Mori” remember that you must die. And the spiritual truth is that remembering our death should help us to live well. Scripture teaches us to remember our death, “In all you do, remember the end of your life, and then you will never sin” (Sirach 7:36). “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Psalm 90:12).

Around AD 530, St. Benedict placed this among the “tools for good works” in his rule, “To keep death daily before one’s eyes.” One common custom was for every monk to keep a human skull in his cell. Another was for the monks, when they passed each other in the halls, to say to one another, “Memento mori,” remember that you will die. And even now every Ash Wednesday we are marked with ashes and hear, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

So, it wasn’t just a group of eccentric Italian Franciscans. It has been the instinct of Christians of all times and places to try and discipline their minds, with the help of ashes and skeletons, if necessary, to stay focused on the fact of death. Because Heaven is the destination. And we can only enter by the doorway of death.

Three

Eyes on the Prize

The reason Christians are supposed to keep death in mind is that death is the last act of the Christian life. It’s the last hurdle to clear, the final barrier, the last enemy. When boxers are preparing for a big fight, they keep a picture of their adversary up by their bathroom mirror, that’s how they focus. That’s how they remember why they need to keep training. So too, death is our adversary. It’s the last big adversary we’ll ever have to fight. As St. Paul says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (I Corinthians 15:26).

So looking at the face of death should be scary or depressing, it’s energizing, concentrating, motivating. Christ is our model. Jesus always kept the Cross at the forefront of His mind. Not because He was scared, or weakly resigned, but because He had a mission and He wanted to stay focused on it. Like a basketball player looks at the hoop as he practices free-throws, and like a sharp-shooter looks at the bull’s-eye as he does target-practice, so we look at death, and we get to work.

Four

Not Dead Yet

There’s a final thing we remember when we talk about memento mori, and it’s something GK Chesterton noticed. He wrote that focusing on death “isn’t only to remind us of a future life, but to remind us of this present life too.” Yes, we look at the skull to remember that we’re going to die. But we also look at the skull to remember that we’re not dead yet.

All habitual unhappiness comes from taking good things for granted. The sun and the stars, the smiling faces of our kids, good music, good food, a green patch of trees with one little brilliant red cardinal perched right in the center of it. And that’s the other beautiful service meditating on death renders us: it makes us never, never take the good things and blessings of this life for granted.

After death, there will be new and wonderful good things awaiting us. But we’ll be sorry, when we look back at this life, if we failed to appreciate the incredible gifts and blessings God sent us in advance.

Five

Resolution

The phrase memento mori, “remember that you must die,” should move us to live better now through a few practical resolutions.

First, make daily meditation and a resolution a habit. Listen to the Word of God, think seriously about it, and choose one concrete way to put it into practice that day. If you make this a habit, you will change for good and grow in virtue and be well prepared for death and Heaven. If you don’t, you will change, but for the worse because unchecked vice gets worse over time, not better and you will be prepared for purgatory at best or worse.

Second, take a few minutes every day to examine the previous twenty-four hours. Ask honestly: Where did I do what was wrong? Where did I fail to do what was right?

Third, bring your sins to Christ in Confession regularly, at least once a month, or even better, every two weeks. In Confession, Christ frees us from sin and guilt, restores us to grace, and gives us His power to overcome our sinful self-destructive vices.

In fact the Catechism (1470) says the best way to keep death before your mind so that you live better now is to make a daily examination of conscience and go to confession regularly.

(1470) “In the sacrament of Reconciliation, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life. For it is now, in this life, that we are offered the choice between life and death, and it is only by the road of conversion that we can enter the Kingdom, from which one is excluded by grave sin. In converting to Christ through penance and faith, the sinner passes from death to life and "does not come into judgment."

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