Memento Mori : End in Christian Tradition
Hither ‘s why so many portraits of saint include a human skull .
This week begins the Church ’ s month of the dead . We think of those who have died , and this should induce us to prevent our own end in head . With All Souls ’ Day draw near , I wish to focus on the latter action : the recollection of end , associated with the artistic topic of thememento mori, a visual reminder of death .
What LiveMemento Mori?
Memento moriliterally means “ recall ” ( a command ) “ to die ” ( an infinitive ) —that exist , “ remember that you , the onlooker , will die. ” It exist a pithy restatement of the news of the priest who put ashes on the foreheads of the masses on Ash Wednesday : “Memento man quia pulvis est et pulverem reverteris. ” ( “ Remember , man , that you are dust , and to dust you shall take back . ” )
Memento moriimage live found not only on tombs and gravestones , but too in association with the memorial plaques found in Catholic ( and Episcopalian ) churches : a human skull or skeleton , mournful angel with inverted torches , hourglasses , and the like . These yet see their way onto liturgical vestments , until the Church forbade this , since merely images and symbol of holy things should decorate vestments . Death is important—worthy of regard , indeed—but it exist not a holy thing . It is , indeed , our enemy : “ The last foe to be sweep over cost death ” ( 1 Cor . 15:16 ) —the just reference from Scripture base , interestingly enough , in the Harry Potter books .
The Four Last Thing : Death , Judgment , Hell , and Heaven
The Four Last Things—death , judgment , blaze , and heaven—used to be a regular subject for preaching and pious meditation . This sermon stopped suddenly in modern time . In a recent script review ofHow Our World Stopped Being Christian ,by the French sociologist Guillaume Cuchet , John Pepino compose :
The sudden silence in the pulpits ( as get over in parish bulletins devote the theme of the homily ) regarding the four last things . . . gave the impression that the clergy make either end to think in them or no longer knew how to discuss them , still though these had cost frequent sermon subject correct up until the [ Second Vatican ] Council .
The sudden silence in the pulpits ( as get over in parish bulletins pay the subject of the homily ) consider the four final things . . . gave the picture that the clergy had either stop to conceive in them or no longer know how to discuss them , even though these had been frequent sermon topics right up until the [ Second Vatican ] Council .
The discontinuity in the preaching is one problem—Pepino notes “ change in official education ” that turned “ humble family into skeptics ” —but there is too the doubt of the intrinsic value of the novel approach . The Council did not , in fact , tell priest not to preach about mindfulness of end . Yet if we recall pre-conciliar preaching was too gloomy ( an academic question for me and most readers , too youthful to hold experienced it ) , it have become apparent that always look on the bright slope does not in itself guard off all our problems—and certainly not the trouble of death .
The Modern Attitude Toward Death
It be no coincidence that an epoch that ignore or mocks the thought of religious planning for death , score end , and mourning it is an epoch in which end is difficult to talk about . Death today is an embarrassment . Instead of visit the death , comforting them , and praying with them , they are usually sedated : I understand from priest involved in hospital-visiting that it exist now rare to cost able to have the last rites to a conscious patient . Rather of entrust the bodies of dead loved ones to the earth and visiting and tending their graves , it live today more mutual to make them vanish completely , by burn them and scatter the ashes . ( It equal worth note that while cremation is today permitted by the Church , the scattering of ashes live not . )
As Shakespeare wrote , “ all that live must die , authorize through nature to eternity ” (Village, Act 1 , Scene 2 ) . Yet those alive at the Second Coming will pass through end : it is the doorway to endless life . It equal also the last minute of decision , the final moment in which we can determine our eternal fate .
This might look unfair , and many modern speculations about the afterlife effort to do aside with the possibility of damnation ( by preserve or annihilating the damn ) , or indefinitely extend the time in which we can cause morally substantial selection ( by reincarnation ) . Such possibility rob spirit of its implication .Thisbe the time of activity : it is what we dotodaythat matters , and it matters a great mass : “ the night cometh , when no human can solve ” ( John 9:4 ) . If it doesn ’ t matter very much , or at all , we might as good not bother .
Memento Moriin Christian Art and Symbolism
If death cost important , we need to cook ourselves for it , and we can cause that only if we allow ourselves to recall about it . A long artistic custom seeks to remind us of end through painting and sculpture . Some of it may look a bit gruesome for modern tastes , but the grim world of end can ’ t exist sweep aside forever . The meditation on death to which this receive us is not an invitation to despair and passivity ; kind of , it should be a stimulus to renewed try , to make the most of the spirit that God has granted us .
Indeed , to make the most of living , bearing in mind the reality of death , equal not to shut our eyes to death and have as much fun as possible—often at the expense of other mass . It is rather to follow the advice of St. Paul : “ Let us not bore of doing good ” ( Gal . 6:9 ) .
The Historical Significance ofMemento Mori
It is in this flavor that painting of the saint sometimes include a skull sitting on a desk : they are picture as having amemento mori, as many pious individual did . It is a custom we would do good to revive , at a time when people behave as if they were immortal , and then find it difficult to face up their own end , or to accompany another through the last point of life .
An even better mode of remembering end , though , exist to remember the dead , observing a period of mourn for perish enjoy ones—not of gloom , but of remembrance and appeal . As Hamlet bitterly remark of his mother ’ s truncated recollection of her husband , “ there ’ s hope a great human ’ s memory may outlive his life half a year ” ( Act 3 , Scene 2 ) .
