Momento Mori

Try this exercise. Get a piece of paper and draw a timeline, using either one-year or five-year intervals. Now, think of your family and closer friends and plot, generally, their life expectancies. You will find that you are older than you think and your family members and older friends are closer to their own deaths than you might like. You might become a little uncomfortable. You and I don’t have many years left, in the great scheme of things, even if we live out our life expectancies; how are we going to use them?  

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

With this latest panic, I have been reminded of the momento mori, or the habit of remembering your mortality. This idea has had a rather extensive history and depending on what culture we might be talking about or author we might read, it has a slightly different focus. In many cases, it is intended to prompt a more virtuous life – because you never know. In others, the idea shifts to remembering that we are “but dust.” With that, it takes on an added dimension of remembering that we are children of God and we should examine ourselves in that light. Both ideas are parallel, but the latter speaks also to managing one’s ego and interactions with other people. We are not simply cultivating virtues for virtue’s sake, but we are submitting ourselves to the will of God for others, actively in our lives.  

This idea then is not synonymous with “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,” but more of a self-awareness of who we are and who we are called to be. Do I take offense at this or that slight, or do I let them go? Do I assert my interests or yield to the interests of others? The Christian call is to consistently put the interests of others ahead of their own because we are disciples of The One who “while we were yet sinner, Christ died for us.” In becoming like Jesus we too give ourselves for others. This is important, that we understand that we are in fact mortal and that we will physically die eventually. For us, that reality isn’t an excuse to seize the day but an impetus to die to ourselves and be ready to be poured out for others. 

There is another aspect to this and that is that we are ready to die physically at any moment. That death isn’t eagerly anticipated most of the time, but it is a sober acceptance of reality. Keeping this reality in mind, we realize that our time to bless others is short and while that is true, we are prepared to leave this world now.  

When we are prepared to die, times like these don’t disturb us as much, at least for ourselves and our lives are calmer. As we keep in mind momento mori, our lives have greater purpose and yet less anxiety.