James Tonkowich
January 15, 2008
The following originally appeared in a recent IRD Weekly e-newsletter. If you would like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, click here and select “IRD Weekly.”
Since Saturday I have been in church three times. Each service celebrated a distinct moment in life: wedding, baptism, and funeral. Each served as a reminder of mortality, a gentle Memento mori, “Remember that you are mortal.”
Last Saturday there was a wedding. The minister reminded the couple that marriage is a ministry, not a consumer product. That is, marriage is a life-long covenant in which husbands and wives assist each other to grow in holiness. It is not like a new car or new house that we can discard once it becomes boring or old.
With that, the bride and the groom each vowed “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.”
My wife and I celebrated our 31st anniversary this week. The wedding reminded us that mutual submission, forgiveness, thanksgiving, and ministry to each other’s souls are our joyous calling until it inevitably ends. Memento mori.
Sunday was the feast of the baptism of Jesus. While there were no children baptized at the service, the pews were full of small ones including the bright-eyed two-year-old in front of us. All (or at least the vast majority) were baptized. The inescapable imagery of baptism—even the baptism of infants—is death and burial followed by resurrection (Romans 6:3-5).
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus wrote concerning his brush with death fifteen years ago:
We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway.
He went on to say:
The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. …Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of people die every day, that thousands will die this day, although that too is true. Death is the warp and woof of existence in the ordinary, the quotidian, the way things are. It is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and the next morning we awake to find the horizon has drawn closer.
Memento mori.
On Tuesday I attended Richard John Neuhaus’ funeral. Fr. Neuhaus was on the IRD board almost since our founding in 1981. He wrote our founding document, “Christianity and Democracy,” that still guides our work.
A friend commented about Neuhaus, “It is not often that one is confronted by a scholar activist whose sharp tongue is dipped in caring love.” Seated in the church where he celebrated daily mass and hearing the reflections on his life as a priest and a friend, it was clear that his caring love was the sweetness of the Gospel. And that sweet Gospel is the hope of seeing him and others we love once again after our labors in this world are over as well.
In his book As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Returning, Neuhaus wrote:
Life is taken seriously when life is held to account, our lives and the lives of others. The worst thing is not the sorrow or the loss or the heartbreak. The worst thing is to be encountered by death and not be changed by the experience.
Most of us, most of the time would prefer not to encounter death at all. If “encountered by death,” we instinctively respond with Scarlett O’Hara’s “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” But tomorrow is too late; we need to think about death today. That is true of our personal lives and our public life.
Dr. Craig Bowron is an internist in Minnesota whose patients include many who are old and actively dying. In a January 9 article in the Washington Post,“The Dying of the Light: The Drawn-Out Indignities of The American Way of Death,” Bowron writes, “In the past, the facade of immortality was claimed by Egyptian kings, egomaniacal monarchs and run-of-the mill psychopaths. But democracy and modern medical advances have made the illusion accessible to everyone.”
His plea is that we break the illusion, acknowledge death, and think about death intelligently. “This isn’t about euthanasia,” he writes, “It’s not about spiraling health care costs. It’s about the gift of life—and death. It is about living life and death with dignity, and letting go.” Memento mori.
Weddings, baptisms, and funerals each point to an aspect of what it means to be human. Each reminds us that to be human is to be mortal. To ignore or attempt to redefine our humanity are wrong-headed schemes at best.
Tomorrow and certainly next week will bring other matters to occupy my attention. Nonetheless, there has been something wholesome, even life-giving about my meditations on death this week. The world seems to make a bit more sense, I feel less burdened, and life seems that much more precious.
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