I think it was a Peter Seeger who used to sing a little ditty that went:
I get up each morning and gather my wits,
I pick up the paper and read the obits.
And if I’m not there, I know I’m not dead,
so I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
I never understood that song when I was younger, but now I live it.
You know, there were seventy-five obituaries in the Telegram this pasr week. A lot of them in their nineties, like Daniel and Christine and Barbara and Raymond and Jennie and Josephine and Dennis and Margaret… Still sad for their families, but they don’t jump out at you.
But then there are the other ones, the ones I notice a lot more since I turned 68. Like Johnny at 65 or Dan at 61 and Eric at 60 and Patricia, who the obituary said died after a brave fight with Covid at the age of 58. Those kinds get to me, but then there’s Chris, who died at 33 or Daryl, who had a heart attack at 41. I tend to stop reading when I get to those.
That kind of an obituary is what is referred to as a memento mori, a reminder of death…and not just someone else’s death. My death. The kind we will speak indelicately about when we start Lent next month: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
It’s why the Roman Missal from which I pray at that altar has a Mass for the Grace of a Happy Death. I pray it much more lately than I ever did before. Here’s the opening Collect:
O God, who have created us in your image
and willed that your Son should undergo death for our sake,
grant that those who call upon you
may be watchful in prayer at all times,
so that we may leave this world without stain of sin
and may merit to rest with joy in your merciful embrace.
It’s a wise sentiment as old as the ancients, as the stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote: “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
Perhaps you’ve heard of those Roman triumphs, when a great general would be rewarded for his victory by passing beneath an arch amidst the cheering throngs. But few noticed the soldier always positioned in the chariot right behind the general, and as the crowds grew louder he would shout into the general’s ear: “Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori!” Look behind you. Remember you are mortal. Remember you must die!
Social Security has a digitized memento mori conveniently included on their site at ssa.gov. It’s innocuously entitled a “life expectancy calculator,” and all it asks for is you gender and date of birth and with the click of the return key it informs me that I probably have 17.6 years left. Not 17.5 or 17.7, mind you, but 17.6.
I should probably start planning.
Indeed….I probably should. For despite the Social Security Administration, Jesus tells me I will know not the day nor the hour, and, as Paul practically screams at the Corinthians: “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out…the world in its present form is passing away!”
He’s like a modern day Jonah, finally doing what the Lord told him to do (after getting thrown overboard, eaten by a whale and spat up on the land…but that’s another homily)…Jonah is walking through the streets of Ninevah yelling: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, “
He probably read too many obituaries. Or maybe he understood the message those obituaries teach: that life is too short and despite SSA.gov, we have no idea how short a time that will be.
Listen to Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, just before he calls his first disciples:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, [today!] and believe in the gospel.”
That’s why Simon and Andrew abandoned their nets and followed him. It’s why James and John left their father in the boat and followed him. Because there is a terrible urgency about the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom which is not about yesterday or tomorrow, so much as about today.
Because in Jesus, the Kingdom of God is at hand. The same Jesus who tells us:
today, find the man without a coat and give him yours;
today, look for the one who is sick and comfort her;
today, seek our the stranger and welcome him home;
today, find the one who hurt you and forgive her;
today, pray, repent, read the scriptures…. go to Church.
Today! For you may not have a tomorrow.
Today! For the Kingdom of God is at hand!
But it’s so easy to forget the urgency of life amidst all the stuff that keeps me so busy, until I’m walking through the cemetery and come across that old gravestone…it’s hard to read the letters, worn out by the elements and the acid rain, but it has been saying the same thing since 1792:
Remember me as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now you soon will be
Prepare yourself to follow me.
Today is the time! The Kingdom of God is at hand!
