Memento Mori – Remember that you have to die

By Deacon Frederick Bartels
24 September 2024

Our Lord Jesus reminds us to be vigilant: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” when I will come in judgment (Matt 25:13).

Each day, we find only the present. The past has melted away and it cannot be recovered, relived, or corrected. It is only in the present moment that we can choose to abandon the past, set a new trajectory, love Christ and act in a way that is pleasing to him. It is only in the present that we have the opportunity to repent of sin, ensure our soul is in a state of grace, live virtuously, and offer our lives in sacrifice to our loving God who created us and sustains us in being each moment.

But we often fail to face what is at stake: eternity. The days pass wasting time on distractions instead of prayer. We tell ourselves “I will stop sinning tomorrow,” forgetting that we are created to love and serve God, that we may attain eternal life in heaven, and instead grovel in the pleasurable things here below. Thus, the present slips into the past, moving beyond our reach.

“Tomorrow” may indeed hold promise; yet it is also deceptive. For the one who continues to set aside repentance and the need to build virtue may well do so for many “tomorrows” until they run out.

Procrastination is a deadly enemy.

How often people say to themselves, “I will love God tomorrow,” but it never arrives because the next moment—so sudden and unexpected—brings an end to this earthly life.

If we would but understand the reality of who and what we are, that we have not only a body but an immortal soul which will survive death. If we would but know that caring for the soul is vastly more important than caring for the body, for the body will one day be destroyed and the soul will come before God in judgment. If we would but see the beauty of a pure, holy soul in love with God! If we would but see the effect of love on the soul!

“It is no small pity, and would cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, … though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us so, that we possess souls…. All our interest is centered in the rough setting of the diamond, and the outer wall of the castle—that is to say, in these bodies of ours” (St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, trans. by E. Allison Peers, Image Books, p. 4).

As each present moment glides into the past, death approaches, and with it the moment of judgment before the infinitely holy God. At that time, will our soul be in a state of grace? Will we die in friendship with God? Will our soul radiate purity and holiness in the love of Christ?

On the other hand, having spent our days only on ourselves, will we die in a state of mortal sin and thus be the cause of our eternal damnation?

On my deathbed, will I rejoice in the fact that I have kept my lamp alight, that I have loved and served God, or will I lie there, closed in on myself, overcome by regret at having only served the desires of my body, while everything I have held dear slips from my grasp?

“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).