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Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin, 1789
Death is an odd thing to think about. It is inevitable, always on its way. Life itself is a distraction from death, our very biology and molecular structure impels us to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Each year, we celebrate our own little triumph against death, adding another candle to the cake as we set off again on our little trip around the sun. We do this for as long as we can, amusing ourselves with trifles, building lives on vain self-importance, and “perfecting” and preserving ourselves in pride. Yet despite the myriad ways we can live our lives, the end is always the same regardless of what we have done with our lives, great or small. Inevitably, it will end.
Memento Mori, (“remember your death”) is a phrase that has pervaded the Church for millennia and great saints have encouraged this practice. Why is that? The answer, I think, is two-fold: to provide a sense of urgency for virtue now, and to give us an opportunity to hope and trust in the promises of Christ.
CCC 1007 states, “Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment.” This idea is underscored by paragraph 1022 which states, “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven — through a purification or immediately, — or immediate and everlasting damnation.”
Lesson 1 of the Baltimore Catechism states, “God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.” To be united perfectly with God in heaven, we must first die. It is then fitting that death itself ought to be something to look forward to (or at the very least not something to fear), for Paul tells us, “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain,” (Phil 1:21). In a very real sense, by virtue of our baptism, we have already died and now live in Christ (CCC 1227, Rom 6:3-4, Col 2:12). This should give us hope that our bodily death, though it is the end of our earthly pilgrimage, is not a tragic loss of the goods of the world, but rather the entrance to our eternal union with God, who is the source of all goodness. This is why the Church celebrates saints on their earthly death day – it is their heavenly birthday and a cause for rejoicing.
The Catholic Physicist 