Fr. JC Maximilian

[A Mosaic from the Chora Church in Istanbul Turkey]

If you read much of the writings of the early Church Fathers, or some of the classics of Christian spirituality, one of the phrases that you often run across is “memento mori,” which means, “remember death.”  While it might not seem very cheerful, that brief saying is meant to remind all of us that we do not know the hour or the minute that we will die, so we should live all the moments of our lives for God.  We should not plan to live a less that Christian life for most of our lives, and then just go to Confession before we die to make things right with God.

However, I am sure that all of us have experienced people who seem to take “memento mori” as their own personal motto.  These are the Eeyores we encounter who always see the glass as half empty, and are always recounting all the woe in their lives.  I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we can all acknowledge times when we are “remembering death” in an unhealthy way.

The two days before Ash Wednesday, this year, I was feeling very much like Eeyore; I was not only remembering death, I was even making a list of all the bad things that were happening in my and my family’s life over the past couple of years.  Fortunately God did not allow me to slip into despair, for He graced me in a special way.  Before the latest family crises hit, I had made my Lenten plans to read a book a friend gave me.  Actually the friend who gave it to me, Michael Dubruiel, is also the author of the book, which is entitled, The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life.  It is a wonderful book, and it has helped me learn more about how to carry the cross that Jesus has given me in my life, and to trust in Him — to have total confidence that He will never give me more than I can handle.

In this book, Michael tells a story about a man named John who was a fixture at the school Michael was doing graduate studies at.  John had been a “big success,” at least in terms that the secular world measures success.  He had started a business that made him a lot of money.  He had the nice car, the nice big house, and all the gadgets of luxury.  Then things started to change for John.  First his wife left him for a younger man, then his partner embezzled money from their company and John lost everything.  The house, the car, and all the money was gone.  John was living in poverty, alone, and he turned to the bottle for help.  After a few years of alcoholism, John finally hit bottom, through the grace of God known as Alcoholic Anonymous, John started to put his life back together.

You did not need to know John for long to learn all about the woe of his life.  One day, John was sitting behind Michael at Mass, and the Sign of Peace Michael noticed that John wore a bracelet with the phrase “memento viva” — “remember life” — on it.  After Mass Michael asked John about the bracelet, and John told him that it was a gift from his brother who told him one, “All you think about is death.  You’ve got to think about life!” (Dubruiel,  The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life, Huntington, IN:  Our Sunday Visitor, Inc, 2004, pp. 163-164).

As followers of Jesus we do need to be people who “memento viva” — REMEMBER LIFE!  Though it is not this life that we are called to focus on.  Rather we are to set our eyes on eternal life.  This is what St. Paul means, when he tells the Romans in today’s second reading, “But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings this message to Martha and Mary who are in grief after the death of their brother Lazarus.  Some commentators have wondered if Martha is mildly chastising Jesus for not coming sooner when she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  However, at the same time she expresses her faith in Jesus; that God will give Him whatever He asks for.  Jesus tells Martha, in assuring her that her brother will rise, that He is “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Then Jesus asks her, and us, “Do you believe this?”

It is easy to say we believe in the resurrection, that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but Jesus asks for more than just an affirmation with our minds and our lips.  He demands an affirmation with our lives.  How do we live our faith in Christ Jesus?  Do we just fulfill the minimum duties of our Faith, or do we see everything — every person, every situation — with the eyes of Faith?  Do we recognize Jesus’ presence in all the situations of our lives?  Do we recognize Jesus present among us right now?  Jesus does not just speak about the resurrection to Martha; He says that He is the resurrection and the LIFE!  At baptism we were given the new life of Christ Jesus and we are called to live that new LIFE in Christ, so that with St. Paul we can cry out “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.”  We need to “memento viva” — remember life, the new life of Christ.

What keeps us from remembering life?  From living the new life of Christ?  In a word, SIN.  Sin damages the life of grace within us, and mortal sin actually kills the life of grace within us.  We need to remember death, that sin kills, so that we can remember life.  In today’s Gospel reading, after Jesus tells those with Him to unbind Lazarus who is still wrapped in the clothes of death.  We too need to be unbound from the clothes of death which bind us.  Jesus left us the sacrament of Reconciliation just for that purpose.  While the Confessional may seem dark, it is so that when we have allowed Christ Jesus to unburden us from our sins we can step into the light, into our new Life.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a sacrament of LIFE, it is remembering the life that Jesus gives us through His redemption.  This Tuesday we will have the opportunity to be unbound from our sins.  We will be having our area Penance Service on Tuesday at St. Gregory’s Church at 7 p.m.  There will be a number of priests available to celebrate the sacrament of God’s mercy with.  I strongly encourage all of you to avail yourselves of this opportunity to remember life, life in Christ Jesus.

“Remember life, keep Jesus in mind, unbind whatever else is there, and let it go” (Dubruiel,  The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life, Huntington, IN:  Our Sunday Visitor, Inc, 2004, p. 166).