
<p>I am not sure if it was intentional, but it's at least interesting that this would also be the time of year when liturgically we start to turn our attention to the end of time, or the fullness of time, and all our eschatological musings. They really go together, don't they? Our own death is going to be the end of the world, in some sense, the end of our current relationship with time and space and the beginning of a whole new something.</p>
<p>I think we often do the same thing with our speculations about death and the afterlife that we do with God: we tend to reduce them to our limited way of thinking. We represent eternal life just like earthly life, only better––a more beautiful landscape, endless supplies of pizza and beer, or, what seems to be everybody's favorite, more and more conjugal love. So the Sadducees in the Gospel today want to make an absurdity out of the injunction from Deuteronomy, that a brother must take up the wife for a deceased brother and raise up his offspring, and then spin that out to the point of absurdity, asking whose wife she will be in heaven after seven brothers––as if that were the point! Jesus could have used the same words he used in Mk 12: 24: <em>Are you not in error because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?</em> You are not acknowledging the infinite majesty and mystery of God! You are reducing heaven and the afterlife to what you can imagine. Even the resurrected body––we have no idea what kind of form it can or will take. Death and whatever lies beyond this life has got to be both more fascinating than anything we could imagine, definitely more awe-inspiring than reducing it to everything we like on earth with all the edges taken off.</p>
<p>I want to suggest that just as we have an apophatic approach to God, a negative approach in which we let all of our imaginings and images go slowly one by one, so perhaps we need to have an apophatic approach to death too, and admit that whatever lies beyond this life is probably more fascinating, but definitely more awe-inspiring than anything we could imagine, just like God.</p>
<p>Sometimes we refer to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as eschatological signs and it is specifically this Gospel that is pointed to as a reference. According to this way of thinking, the vows point to the kingdom of God, the vows already point to heaven. Especially the vow of chastity or the promise of celibacy, which diocesan priests take, for instance, points to the time, as Jesus says,<em> when they will neither marry nor be given in marriage</em>. But I think there's something more to the vows, too; they're a preparation for death. To willingly embrace poverty, a lack of ownership, is also a reminder that all things are passing, and that we are going to have to let them go one day anyway. Of course that doesn't make us hate the things of earth; if anything it makes us appreciate them more! The guys have heard me say often that line from G. K. Chesteron's Fr. Brown mysteries, "No one knows how to enjoy a meal so much as someone who knows how to fast." The vow of obedience points toward a time when we will have to let go of everything we are holding on to. And all of our decision-making, our opinions and our preferences may be harder to let go of than our material possessions. I will never forget sitting at Br. Philip's bedside as he was dying, and he was holding on, holding on, and when he finally did pass and the bell rang signaling his death, Raniero and I both yelled out at the same time, "He did it!" Meaning, he finally let go! Every one of the vows we take is a little death, a letting go. And the big one,<em> conversatio morum</em>, is the biggest rehearsal of all, to constantly be asking our way of life, what else of my way do I need to let go of?</p>
<p>There's an ancient Latin phrase<em> memento mori</em>–"remember death." I was trying to find the origins of it <em>memento mori</em>. Some say it is a pre-Christian phrase (and this is a story worthy of Daniel Manger). In ancient Rome either when a general was either when he was about to march into battle, or when he was parading through the streets after a great victory in battle, his slave would stand behind him saying just loud enough for him to hear:<em> Memento mori</em>. Both great occasions for it: "Remember that all this fame is going to end," and "Remember how fragile you are." According to legend, Trappist monks are also thought to greet each other this way, at least on their first meeting:<em> Frater, memento mori</em>, to inspire their meditation (though I have never been greeted thus by a Trappist). St. Benedict doesn't use the exact phrase<em> memento mori</em> in the Rule, but he does have the same thought in Chapter 4: ...<em> mortem cotidie ante oculos suspectam habere</em>––"Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die¬¬." I think that goes with the<em> conversatio morum</em>. And then he follows that with, "Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do..." (RB 4:47-48) What's most telling about that is that St. Benedict includes this in the "tools for good works." This is a tool for good works, to keep death before our eyes, to keep careful watch over all you do! How can that awareness be a tool that helps craft good works?</p>
<p>Remember you are going to die and what? Often <em>memento mori</em> is associated with <em>memento vivere</em>––Remember death and remember to live! No one knows how to live so well as someone who is ready to die. Remember you are going to die, and Wake up!! Pay attention! Remember death and be humble in the face of eternity, and the grandeur of the universe! Tibetan Buddhism has a serious practice of reflecting on death, and they would say, remember death and have compassion! Why? This is from the Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche: because "When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings."<sup>2</sup> As the famous Mary Oliver poem ends, "Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? / Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?"</p>
<p>Remember death and what? Especially this, I think: Remember death and have hope! There is something tied in here too with our notion of time in the prophetic traditions. The injunction in Deuteronomy to carry on your brother's lineage is marvelous in the sense that there's an assumption that we need to carry on the work that went before us into the future. This is where hope comes in: the belief that they were carrying on their brothers' lineage means that time has some trajectory to it, that history has a direction, a purpose. The same thing applies to these martyrs that we hear about in the book of Macabbees: they know that their death is worth while, not only because they will go to heaven, but because their blood will be, as we say in the Christian tradition, the seed of the faith. Their lives are about something bigger. This is the amazing thing about martyrs of every stripe, in any tradition, religious or secular. The thing to be admired is that they are willing to give their lives for something greater than themselves, something that will outlast them that they may never even get to see. Hope lies not just in the assurance of going to heaven; hope lies in the fact that life is worth continuing, and that building a world of justice and peace is worth dying for so that others may live. The same thing applies to soldiers and peace officers who lay their lives on the line to protect the innocent, as well as for protesters in Syria, Tiananmen Square or Tahrir Square, or civil rights marchers in Selma, who know that their lives are in danger every time they show up to face evil and injustice. I can only imagine that kind of courage, facing the awesome mystery of death every day. I feel so small in the face of this, all the little deaths I have to face.</p>
<p>Lastly, it's notable how often the nuptial imagery comes up. In that time some Jewish teachers thought that in the kingdom of the resurrection would be endless conjugal bliss, in the writings of the 1st century rabbi Gamaliel, for instance. It has also become well known, unfortunately, in this day and age of suicide bombers, that there is a belief among certain Muslims, that someone who died for the faith would have 72 wives in heaven. (Islamic scholars tell us this is actually a misreading of the Qur'an and the <em>hadith</em> or sayings of the Prophet.) As angry as it makes us, we should also feel sad for those who get lured into suicide seduced by those materialistic myths, reducing heaven to earthly images and fleshly pleasures. I don't recall us having it quite that blatant in the Christian tradition, but I think there is something right about the nuptial, marriage imagery, it's just that for us it's eros of a different sort. It's the eros of God drawing us to himself, of the reign of God drawing all of creation to itself. And for us individually, it is the soul being wedded to God, as is the Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs; it is the wedding feast of the Lamb, a little taste of which we celebrate every time we gather at this Eucharistic table, realized eschatology, already-and-not-yet.</p>
<p>So let's remember death and have hope! Let's remember death and be compassionate! "Be kind; it's been a rough day on the planet for everyone." Let's remember death and live! Wake up! Pay attention! Let's remember death and build a world of justice and peace! Let's remember death and prepare ourselves for the wedding feast of the Lamb.</p>
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<p>[1] Sam Keen, In the Absence of God, 120</p>
<p>[2] Quoted in Keen, 108-109.</p>