In the first of our Lent series reflecting on the theme of death, Dr Jacob Phillips reflects on how remembering our mortality can help us prepare for the end well. 22/02/2023

Today (Ash Wednesday), Christians around the world will have ashes ceremonially placed in the shape of a cross on their foreheads and asked to remember the words from Genesis 3:19: “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris” meaning “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” 

The first word of the phrase memento mori is a Latin imperative, meaning an instruction or command, telling someone to remember that they will die. It has roots in Ancient Rome, and developed in medieval Europe around the practice of having objects present in daily life, to remind us of our own death.  

While many today might think it a bit odd to remind one’s self of the inevitability of one’s own death, the reality is that we’re never too far from being reminded of our own mortality. A report from 2017 estimated that ‘two million people across the UK are dealing with death’s emotional, financial and practical consequences every year’, as well as there being a further one million who care for someone with a terminal illness. As we age, moreover, people whom we know begin to die.  

It is actually rather odd, then, that people might need to be reminded of their own death. Such reminders are a feature of life. Government policy includes a pledge that each of us are entitled to receive ‘attentive’ and ‘compassionate care’ while nearing the end of life, so that our ‘spirits are lifted’, and our ‘wishes’ for our ‘closing weeks, days and hours are respected’. But the vast majority of us have never given much thought to what those wishes might be, unless we’ve been in a situation where such considerations seemed inescapable. A need to be reminded probably reflects our instinctive avoidance of facing death’s reality. 

The 17th century theologian Robert Bellarmine wrote a book called The Art of Dying Well. The word ‘art’, in the original Latin, means a learned skill, gained through practice. We cannot practise dying, but anyone who has experienced bereavement can confirm that dealing with someone’s death is a very practical business. Amidst our grieving, there are phone calls with a coroner, the issuing of the death certificate, the funeral, the will, and then belongings and keepsakes to home appropriately. On the most basic level, then, we would do well to remember that we will die so we might put things in order to make everything as straightforward as possible for those we’ll leave behind. 

There’s more going on with this ancient tradition than practical considerations for our loved ones, however. It has roots in Stoic philosophy, related to an attitude of resignation, or what we might instead term acceptance. Cultivating an acceptance of death promises to help us avoid being so preoccupied with things which are, ultimately, of little consequence. Related concerns are seen in many Buddhist practices focused on gaining an awareness of death. Michel Houellebecq’s novel, The Map and the Territory, includes a character who performs an extreme variant of such traditions, asubha: meditating while gazing at a decomposing corpse while repeating the mantra ‘This is my fate, the fate of all mankind, I cannot escape it’. 

For the Stoics, an attitude of resignation or acceptance was deemed important for encouraging something today’s therapeutic language might call ‘right–sizing’; putting things in perspective. But it is not deciding that nothing is particularly significant because everything will die, so much as realising that – from the perspective of our finitude – some things are profoundly significant. That is, avoiding or healing broken relationships, caring for loved ones, properly fulfilling the responsibilities of life before it’s too late.  

When Marcus Aurelius wrote “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think”, he is encouraging memento mori as a call to action. Many centuries later Martin Heidegger defined human beings as ‘being–unto–death’ – meaning that what defines us as human is our conscious awareness of our own death. This means in turn that we live with an intense need to define who we are, a need that other sentient creatures do not have. Memento mori is about cultivating a constant attitude of carpe diem, seizing every day with both hands, before our grip loosens as the sun sets on life. 

In recent years, Sister Theresa Aletheia, an American nun, has revived the practice of memento mori in its more Christian dimensions. Her use of social media and her publications gained a surprising amount of media attention. Part of what Sister Theresa teaches shows how memento mori can involve more than just a call to action or self–realisation. Genuinely living as beings ‘unto–death’ means embracing the multitude of ‘little deaths’ we experience on a daily basis – the plans which don’t work out, the people who disappoint us, even things as trivial as a lost but well–loved item of jewellery or a broken appliance. If such little–deaths are connected internally by us with our own ultimate death, we might be moved to a position whereby such losses can be embraced as preparations for our own dying. That is, from a Christian perspective, accepting the challenges of the present as ways by which the soul is continually being readied for eternity.  

We thus enter into deeply paradoxical territory. Robert Bellarmine famously wrote that “if you want to live well, you must die well”. Memento mori is a daily practice of dying well, developing the learned practice or skill of reflecting on our daily losses as recollections of our own death. It is to fully invert that instinct of denial into something closer to St Francis of Assisi’s statement, ‘Welcome, Sister Death’. It is an attitude of conscious welcome to death as holding a key to unlock our own identities. Every death is heart–breaking for those affected by it – but as we’re entitled to have our dying wishes respected, perhaps some would benefit from respecting the ways our living desires can be vivified by reflecting on our dying well while we are very much alive.         

Dr Jacob Phillips, Director of the Institute of Theology and Liberal Arts, St Mary’s University

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