Denver, Colo., Oct 30, 2017 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- There’s an old Latin phrase that’s suddenly new again – at least in the realm of Catholic Twitter™.
The resurgence of the the Latin phrase “memento mori” (remember your death) is thanks in large part to tweeting nun Sr. Theresa Aletheia, a “media nun” with the Daughters of St. Paul, who has been recording, via tweets, what it’s like to have a (plastic) skull sitting on her desk:
Day 94 w ????on my desk:
If we could taste the joys of heaven for even a moment, we would have no fear of death.#mementomori
— Sr. Theresa Aletheia (@pursuedbytruth) October 27, 2017
The phrase, and practice, has caught on, and a quick Twitter search of #mementomori now reveals hundreds of results.
But even before nuns and Catholic millennials were tweeting about the skulls on their desks, religious orders have been “memento mori”-ing for centuries. Here’s how various religious orders have kept their mortality in mind throughout the ages.
Origins of the phrase
According to legend, the phrase “memento mori” may have originated with the Roman empire. Allegedly, when victorious Roman generals returned from battle, in the midst of their festivities, a slave or another low-ranking citizen would follow them around and whisper “memento mori,” or some other reminder that their earthly glory was temporary.
Even before the Roman empire, meditation on death and the last things was a common practice of ancient philosophers like Plato, who once said that philosophy was “about nothing else but dying and being dead”.
The phrase and the practice was then incorporated into medieval Christianity – death was especially poignant as the plague spread throughout Europe and Asia, killing millions of people within the span of just a few years.
“Memento mori” was such a popular religious theme in this period that it inspired a genre of art, music and literature.
Memento mori myths and the Brothers of the Dead
One of the most common myths surrounding “memento mori” is that the phrase is used by monks, particularly the famously-ascetic Trappist monks, as a form of greeting among brothers.
Fr. Timothy Scott, a Trappist brother and priest, said that this myth originated with a now-obsolete order of French monks called “The Order of the Hermits of Saint Paul,” who came to be known as the “Brothers of the Dead.”
According to “La Sombre Trappe,” by Fr. M. Anselme Dimier, this order “pushed its tastes for the macabre to the extreme,” wearing scapulars with skulls and crossbones, and kissing a skull at the foot of the cross before each meal.
The words “Memento Mori” were found on the seal of the order alongside a skull and crossbones, and skulls were prominently displayed in most parts of the monastery, including in each brother’s cell.
The brothers of this order were also known for greeting each other with “Think of death, dear brother,” and rumors have spread that the Trappists adopted this tradition, even after the Brothers of the Dead were suppressed by Pope Urban VIII in 1633.
“In no period of the Order’s history, in no Trappist monastery, have these words been in usage; the brothers greet one another in silence, as in the early days of the Order of Citeaux,” Dimier wrote.
Fr. Scott confirmed that a silent greeting “is the constant tradition and practice of the Order.”
How Trappists “memento mori”
Trappists are a branch of Cistercian monks, a reformed branch of the Benedictines, who desired to live the Rule of St. Benedict more authentically.
But while Trappist brothers don’t use “memento mori” as a greeting, other reminders of death have been present in the Trappist order, particularly in older monasteries, Fr. Scott said.
In his book “A Time to Keep Silence”, Patrick Leigh Fermor recalls these symbols of death, particularly present in Trappist monasteries during the 18th and 19th century.
“Symbols of death and dissolution confronted the eye at every turn, and in the refectory the beckoning torso of a painted skeleton, equipped with an hourglass and a scythe, leant, with the terrifying archness of a forgotten guest, across the coping of a wall on which were inscribed the words: ‘Tonight perhaps?’”
Fr. Scott added that he has heard of several other monasteries with various “memento mori” traditions, such as the monastery of la Val Sainte in Switzerland, which kept a white-wood cross and a skull in the middle of the refectory, or dining hall. Another Trappist monastery in France had the words “Hodie mihi, cras tibi” (Today I die, tomorrow it will be you) written above the door leading to the cemetery.
These skulls, inscriptions, and the various prayers for the dead help the brothers “to keep in mind that our time on this earth is limited and what we do now matters for eternity,” Fr. Scott said.
“We will be accountable one day before God for all that we do. It makes no sense to waste the precious time that has been allotted to us. We must use it to do good and to love others now.”
“However, the theme of memento mori, remembrance of death, needs to be set within the larger theme of the memory or mindfulness of God,” he added. “The monastic life is oriented primarily toward cultivating a living relationship with the persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who have been revealed to us in the Son, Jesus Christ, and who, through his passion, death, and resurrection have called us to full communion and fellowship with them now and in eternity.”
The bone churches of Europe
Several orders of monks, including the Capuchins, Franciscans, and the Cistercians, are also known for having built churches or crypts decorated almost exclusively with the remains of their forebearers, a stark “memento mori” for any visitors to these sites.
One of the best-known such churches, sometimes called an Ossuary, is the Capuchin crypt beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto in Rome, Italy, which includes six chapels, five of which are covered in the skeletal remains of Capuchin friars of yesteryear.
The crypt was built in the 1630s, when Pope Urban VIII ordered some Capuchin friars to set up residency at the Church, and asked that they bring the remains of their bygone brothers with them, so that they would not be abandoned.
In total, an estimated 4,000 skeletons, from friars deceased between the 1520s – 1870s, decorate the insides of the various chapels. The various crypts include a crypt of the resurrection, a crypt of skulls, a crypt of leg and thigh bones, and a crypt of pelvises. A plaque in on display in the crypt reads: “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.”
Allegedly, this Roman ossuary inspired a similar “Bone Church” in Prague, in the Czech Republic. There, the Sedlec Ossuary, built by Cistercian monks, is decorated with the remains of an estimated 40,000 people.
The reason for the large number of remains dates back to the 1200s, when a Cistercian monk returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he brought back dirt from Golgatha, the hill where Christ was crucified, and sprinkled that dirt in the cemetery at the monastery.
As word of this holy dirt spread, the cemetery became a popular place in which to buried. By the time the plague hit, the number of people requesting burial in the cemetery became so great that the monks began exhuming the bones, storing them in the church, and using them for interior decoration.
The Church has been restored several times and is no longer in possession of the Cistercian order, but the popular site receives thousands of visitors annually.
A third popular “Bone Church” is the Capela dos Ossos, in Évora, Portugal, next to the Church of St. Francis.
Built by a Franciscan in the 16th century, the chapel has similar origins to the Czech Ossuary, in that it became a creative way to store the bones contained in cemeteries running out of room to house remains.
Reportedly, the monk also believed that the Church could be a force for the Counter-Reformation, and a good place for Catholics of the area to come and remember their mortality.
Like the Roman ossuary, the bone church in Portugal has several “memento mori” themed inscriptions, including Ecclesiastes 7:1 “A good name is better than good ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.”
Dominicans – the best order in which to die
For Dominican friars, their “memento mori” comes every day when they recite prayers for the dead, said Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, professor of moral theology for the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies.
The Dominicans pray for the dead so frequently that it’s become part of a joke, he told CNA.
“There are many reasons you want to live in the other orders – the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Jesuits – but out of all of them, you want to die with the Dominicans, because we constantly pray for the dead,” he said.
Whenever a Dominican friar dies, all the priests in his province celebrate a Mass for him. The order also prays what is called the “De Profundis” – a daily prayer, typically before a main meal, that includes praying Psalm 130 in remembrance of all of the men of the province whose death anniversary is on that day.
Dominicans also celebrate an additional “All Saints Day” and “All Souls Day” – they celebrate these feasts with the Church on Nov. 1 and 2, but then they celebrate a second round of these feasts on Nov. 7 and 8, particularly praying for the Dominican saints and souls.
“In terms of praying daily for the dead, it is a constant reminder of our own mortality, that heaven and eternal life is the goal, and it’s also a reminder that death is something that we all face,” Guilbeau said.
“When we die, we go alone, there’s no one who accompanies us in that at that moment. But by praying for those who have gone before us in death, we get a sense of that union and community that endures into the next life, and insofar as we aid the dead by our prayers, they’re waiting for us and aiding us by their prayers. It’s a daily reminder of the common prayer that we have for each other.”
“In terms of…sleeping in our coffin or having skulls on the desk, we don’t do that,” Guilbeau said, but he added that the black cape that Dominicans wear is meant to serve as a physical “memento mori” for the order.
The daily reminder of death isn’t something “macabre or depressing,” Guilbeau added, “but it’s something hopeful and joyful, that this veil of tears is not the end of our existence, it’s not the goal.”
“If we live in the love of Jesus Christ and we live in the light of the Holy Spirit, there’s constant preparation and help and grace and strength for that moment when we pass from this life to the next,” he said.
Therefore, for the saint, death isn’t something to be feared, but welcomed and embraced like a sibling, Guilbeau said, recalling the words of St. Francis who once wrote in his “Canticle of the Sun”: “Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death, from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.”
[…]
“. . . this is leading many Catholics to Protestantism . . .”
And not just in Brazil.
Back in 2006 when I was my diocese’s Director of Catholic Charities I made the decision that we would begin doing medical missions to Guatemala. What convinced me was a visit to Guatenala where I witnessed firsthand numerous missionaries from protestant denominations who were in Guatemala for one reason which was to convert baptized Catholics into protestant evangelicalism. I also was aghast at the thousands of evangelical churches that dotted the landscape. I thought to myself that I could just retutn to my home diocese and do nothing or I could begin to organize Catholics in my diocese to become missionaries to the Guatemalan people. That I did
Sometimes the road to Protestantism is the road back to Rome. They go there because we are not doing our job in teaching and evangelizing. We should be thankful for what they do and acknowledge what we are NOT doing. We should love our “separated brethren “ and share with them the fullness of faith just as Paul did with those who only knew of the baptism of John and those who did not have the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
How’s that Liberation Theology working out in Nicaragua, Pope Francis?
Such a question to pose to Pope Francis as one may readily anticipated his response “Nicaragua is struggling only because the radical traditionalist have precluded the fullest implementation of Liberation Theology in Nicaragua as well as throughout the world.”
There is arguable evidence that “liberation theology” was not so much the intellectual achievement of theologians as a construct of communists, esp. in Romania, who tried to package Marxism in Christian wineskins and found gullible “thinkers” buying the sauce.
Absolutely true, “liberation” theology was political, thoroughly, and the cause of decline of true Christianity in all parts of the world it was and still is being espoused. We can not “believe” in a church that is based on faith in a political solution to societal ills. It will fail, and in fact in this instance,brought about even more suffering and persecution, even more poverty, than BEFORE the new Catholicism in the form of Liberation Theology was espoused. I listened and learned from these liberation theologists in the 70s and 80s, and wised up when I saw the results. Results on the poor is what my bottom line is, and liberation theolody/marxism does not raise up the poor.
100% agree. Oddly my full comment of agreement was declined to post, but at least I can 100% agree
Sorry, it WAS accepted, just after I posted it was not. Apologies.
So the Vatican discernment for the catastrophe called liberation theology in Brazil is to resuscitate and rehabilitate it for worldwide export. 🤦♀️
Quick, lock the doors and alert the masters of synodality that there’s another “backward” Christian lurking in Brazil!
And, of the Boff brothers, why are we reminded of the difference, too, between Karl Rahner and his brother and priest Hugo? Fr. Hugo Rahner once said that he would like to translate Karl’s theologically foggy German tomes—into German!
“It is necessary for the Church to once again emphasize Christ as priest, as master and Lord, and not just the fight against poverty” or climate change.
Absolutely. Jesus DID say the poor would always be with us. He said nothing about climate change yet He does control the wind and the rain. He set limits to the seas.
Without HIM we can do absolutely zero, NADA, nothing. So why do delude ourselves, huh? He also said He would be with us always, so why do we wait to call upon Him?
The problem is that too many clergy imagine that Catholicism is the same thing as Communism. Its not. But by the time some realize it, the damage is already far gone. If some are FINALLY waking up to the fact that they have tossed out the baby with the bath water, more the better. The REAL question is, can the many decades of damage still be reversed?
In the public health scam COVID-cum-COVID-vaccine, the Pope propagated a singular solidarity in the scam vaccinations as the way of universal human fraternity and (somehow) love of the poor -all through the Cross of Christ.
At a particular Way of the Cross event he demonstrated a total conviction with a patterning to obedience, “Christ at the absolute center with a cost”.
I forgive the Pope for it. It is nonetheless a total disaster. Of what now ensues, I think it is necessary to practice greater fidelity in faith in order to make up for what remains absent; help what might be inoffensive or perhaps right; and be vigilant for what is still likely to go wrong again.
I would like to point out to him, for a consideration, that what the “singular solidarity” approach does in many instances, is, it merely leaves his apostolate and that of many others, hamstrung. And it can contain a rigidity all its own.
What is the percentage of professed Catholics in traditionally known “Catholic” nations, such as Italy or Spain? Also, we all need to read in Sacred Scripture Thessalonians 2:1-8 a great falling way from Christ’s Church.
Liberation Theology is heresy. You can’t “put Christ at the center” of heresy “because it will cost you”. You have to reject the heresy.
The thing with heresy is that it gets in your blood, your very spirit becomes polluted; and only the grace of God can purify.
This article is too descriptive and carries forward the tone of accommodation. Christ does not rectify heresy, He destroys it.
Make mammon the priority over holiness of soul and you have gone awry. Give the poor enough mammon and you save them from evil? Hardly. Yet, how many with enough mammon believe they no longer need God? Too many. Brazil is wealthy. As the wealth has come, the need for the faith diminished. The SJWs post V2 had the same “pie in the sky” mentality about divinizing saving the helpless poor. The orders that took their eyes off Heaven and refocused their energies on lifting the poor out of poverty were all dissolved from atrophy 5-years or so afterward. It was a death knoll. Jesus said that “the poor will always be with you.” I think it’s well past time we accept that and move on to saving souls again. It matters.
To understand the impact of Liberation Theology in Brazil, it’s necessary to assess it in the wider context of world affairs in the region, plus the common cultural dynamic of class color. Insofar as world affairs the US supported a policy of support and intervention for dictatorial leaders who were anti communist. Example, the notoriously oppressive Somoza govt Nicaragua, which precipitated the Ortega anti Catholic regime. Class color is a preferential tendency for lighter complected leadership. We find this in S America, India, and elsewhere, and to a large extent during the history of the US [today in the US there’s an exaggerated, likely unjust effort to reverse the trend at the expense of the lighter complected].
Most of the clergy in S America were from upper to middle class families, many plantation patroons. Archbishop Romero, Salvador, was murdered because he opposed the class system that victimized the poor. Whatever the source of Liberation Theology, its error in sidelining Christ in favor of the underprivileged, climate it remains that it addressed injustices that are at least partially responsible for Catholic apostasy.
It’s an historical fact that Jorge Bergoglio, when prefect for the Jesuits in Argentina refused to support three confreres involved in the liberation movement who were arrested and mistreated by police. He later contended that this was a mistake. According to biographer Austen Ivereigh he reversed course, adapting a Peronist socialist outlook that may explain his radical approach to traditional doctrine. John Paul II opposed Liberation Theology but successfully intervened in the similar Solidarity movement in Poland. Perhaps he could have done as well in S America.
“Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’” (Matthew 19:21). A primary dynamic in Christ’s message is compassion for those in need. That is mentioned throughout the Gospels and letters.
There are injustices in this world that require correction. Keeping people in virtual slave labor conditions to preserve wealth and status is an injustice. Unfortunately, the Vatican failed to develop a viable response to the immoral disparity between the upper and lower classes in S America. When Catholic missionaries addressed these moral issues, aside from the ideologues, with due prudence, they were falsely accused of being Marxists.
For the rest of us, if we content ourselves with our comfortable status and neglect witness to the truth, for example, those in dire need we neglect a vital dimension of our salvation. As readers well know I don’t agree with all that Pope Francis proposes. But on this social justice issue I agree fully.
Liberation Theology is a pseudo-Christian idea. Sadly it won’t be abandoned anytime soon. The hubris in the hierarchy will likely double down on the failing and flawed idea until the numbers are unavoidable. Too many people assume that the peddlers of Liberation Theology are interested in growing the church. I’d posit their real aim to is to feel good in their emoting of the ideas within Liberation Theology instead of actually doing good. The WSJ had an article on the rise of Pentecostalism in South America not too long ago. One of the speculated ideas was that the Liberation Theology hold put economic prosperity in a negative light, whereas the non-Catholic denominations were at peace with those in poverty trying to break into the middle class.
Here is an attempt t0 apply “liberation theology” to Catholic schools which are now too expensive for the poor:
“A preferential option for the poor” should be maintained in our Catholic Schools. If we find that we cannot afford to keep our schools open to the poor, the Church should be ready to use its resources for something else which can be kept open to the poor. We cannot allow our Church to become a church primarily for the middle-class and rich while throwing a bone to the poor. The priority should be given to the poor even if we have to let the middle-class and rich fend for themselves.
Practically speaking, the Catholic Schools must give up general education in those countries where the State is providing it. The resources of the Church could then be focused on “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine” and other programs which can be kept open to the poor. These resources could then be used to help society become more human in solidarity with the poor. Remember, the Church managed without Catholic Schools for centuries. It can get along without them today. The essential factor from the Christian point of view is to cultivate enough Faith to act in the Gospel Tradition, namely, THE POOR GET PRIORITY. The rich and middle-class are welcome too. But the poor come first.
Seriously? What is your issue, really? Do you imagine the middle class and “wealthy” kids have no souls to be saved? Poor is a relative concept, with most poor Americans ( with clean clothing, new sneakers and cell phones) looking like they have a pretty decent deal to the rest of the world. That is why we are presently in need of a very large WALL to keep these folks OUT.We do indeed have a standard public school system here in the US. However with the leftist oriented teachers telling the kids the US is a horrible country, slamming the white kids for being white, and indoctrinating ALL the kids with noxious and perv sexual concepts, I would not enroll a dog there. Finally, statistics show most US public schools have exceedingly large numbers of kids not meeting standards of achievement for math and English. Why would ANYONE with a brain put their kids there. Finally, with the middle class and wealthy tuition payers pushed out of Catholic schools, who do you imagine is going to come up with the cash to pay the teachers, electric and heating bill, etc? The poor folks? Dont think so. We do indeed have poor catholics and existing catholic schools should make certain to admit a few such families to the school tuition free. A teacher will be teaching whether there are 16 kids in the class or 18. Our church just took up a collection of school supplies for a neighboring parish for the upcoming school year. There are of course deserving poor, but some of us are tired of having to hear the whine and then get kicked for it.
“This option [for the poor] is not limited to material poverty, since it is well known that there are many other forms of poverty, especially in modern society—not only economic, but cultural and spiritual poverty as well” (St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 1993, n. 57).
Liberation Theology is not merely “thoroughly political movement that actually works against the poor/exploits the poor”; it is heresy.
So you blend Marxist ideology with Christian theology and then wonder why people end up leaving the church? That’s not exactly rocket science.
Liberation Theology was an effective tool in the armory of Jesus of Nazareth. In his time Jesus liberated the sinners from sin, the tax collectors from greed, the exploiters from practicing all forms of corruption. Following in the footsteps of Christ, the apostles and the disciples became teachers and practitioners of liberation theology. Sensitizing and conscientizing the simple and pious people who were led astray by the regimes of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Levites, the good old liberation theologians of the first century unleashed a sustainable emancipatory model for living and serving in dignity, as human beings made in the image and likeness of the divine.
Liberation Theology is a modern heresy.