Audio only:
Joe examines how Halloween invites us to “memento mori,” or remember death.
Transcription:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and the spooky season is upon us with Halloween just around the corner. And I know many Christians aren’t sure of what to make of Halloween, because as a holiday, it can strike many of us as unholy because of what seems like a weird fascination with darkness and death. And I wanna be very clear at the outset that sometimes people do celebrate Halloween in a way where they’re celebrating things that are wicked. There’s no doubt about that, and it is indefensible. But at the same time, I think that many modern Christians forget our own heritage here, because traditionally Christians have had a healthy emphasis on the need to remember death, judgment, heaven, and even hell. These were collectively what were classically called the four last things. In other words, a little spookiness might be good to wake up the soul.
So today I wanna offer a basic case for that spirituality, including the six traditional questions that you ought to ask somebody who’s dying to help to get them to heaven. Now, to start out with, I wanna begin with a famous line from the book of Sirach, in which we’re told, “In all you do, remember the end of your life, and then you will never sin.” In other words, when we sin, it’s because we’re focused on some short-term gain while blinding ourselves to the long-term consequences of sin. We want something like a pleasure in the moment. But if at all times we could just see the reality of eternity, the reality of what sin does to our relationship with God, and if we could remember and keep in front of ourselves at all times our Lord who tells us, “I tell you on the day of judgment, men will render account for every careless word they utter.” Don’t you think we would make better choices?
But unfortunately, we all too often forget that we could die at any moment. We could be before the throne of God tonight. Saint James warns about this in James chapter four. He talks about how we make all of these plans for the future, but he says, “You do not know about tomorrow because in his words, what is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Jesus makes the same point. He tells the story of a rich man who amasses wealth and he tells himself that it’s time to take his ease, to eat, drink and be merry. That’s actually where the expression comes from. But that attitude, that worldly attitude that involves a kind of forgetfulness about mortality and death isn’t good. God rebukes a man for it saying, “Fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you’ve prepared, whose will they be?” Now, you know what?
Speaking of that, if you find that you need to offload some of your amassed riches in a way that might build up the kingdom, I’m happy to help you out as I can over at shamelessjoe.com. Your monthly support helps us to make episodes like this without needing to take sponsors. And in exchange, I’m only too happy to do Q&A live streams every week answering your questions. And more than that, you get episodes early and ad free. So you know what? Best of all, you’re not amassing your wealth in a worldly storehouse that you might be judged for. So thank you or maybe you’re welcome. But in all seriousness, it really is quite easy to fall into a complacency about the things of this world as if this life is all that there is. And to combat this, Christian preaching has historically focused on reminding us of our death.
Around the year 529, St. Benedict wrote his famous rule which serves to this day as a rule of life for Benedictine monks and is considered the foundation of Western monasticism. And in chapter four of his rule, he talks about the need to put one’s hope in God as well as the need to fear the day of judgment, to be in dread of hell, to desire with all spiritual longing everlasting life, and most particularly for our present purposes, to keep death daily before one’s eyes. So all four of those four last things. Thomas Kempes’ devotional book, The Imitation of Christ, was one of the most popular books in the Middle Ages. Now in that book, he has a few chapters on the importance of focusing upon death. He writes, “Oh, the dullness and hardness of the human heart, which thinks only of what is present and does not look rather forward to things to come.” Instead, he says, “You ought in every action and though, so to order yourself as if you were immediately to die.” He goes on to say, “Blessed is he that has always the hour of his death before his eyes and every day prepares himself to die.” And he reminds us if you ever see a man dying, remember that you too are going to traverse the same path someday.
If in every decision you made, every email you send, every word you speak in a conversation, you’re aware, this could be the very last thing I ever say, you might make better choices. Now, there’s another popular medieval book called the Ars Moriendi, which just means The Art of Dying or The Art of Dying Well. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. It is a book written to help people to learn how to die well. And you have to imagine, you know, if you’re living in Europe during the Black Death where a third of Europe dies out, the reality that you might die at any time would be something that you couldn’t help but think about. So the artwork in this period reflects that kind of thinking. There was a whole series of paintings involving what became known as the dance macabre or the dance of death, and it depicted people from all classes, the rich and the poor, popes, kings and ordinary people all being escorted to their death.
Now it’s part of a broader category called memento mori, which means remember that you have to die. Now that’s the point of all of this. From James’ warning that your life is like a vapor to even the skulls and ghosts of Halloween. We even get a little momentomori in every Hail Mary. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this. We ask Mary to pray for us now and at the hour of our death. And spiritually, those are the only two moments that really matter. It’s no use getting lost in the past that we can no longer control, and it’s no use getting lost in the future that may never even happen. We are given the present moment now. And we’ll be judged for how we use our now when we stand before Jesus Christ at the hour of our death. Every high and low of your past, every hope and fear you might have for the future, all of those things matter only if they help you to make better choices now that will serve you well at the hour of your death.
Now I realize this message is radically countercultural. We live in a world that is forgetful, both of death and of the spiritual realities of angels and demons. We live in a world which hides the reality of death and dying. We put it where we can’t see it in the nursing home or the hospital or the abortion clinic, where the terrors of death are out of sight and out of mind. We anesthetize ourselves to the reality of death. And in a way we must do that because we live in a world that is built on the lie that this life is all that there is. And if that’s right, if this life is all that there is and we shouldn’t be living like Christians, St. Paul himself makes this point. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
The entire Christian life is built on a single proposition that there is more to life than what we currently experience, that life is not extinguished with death and that we shall live on forever in eternal glory or eternal horror. And as C.S. Lewis said, all day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or other of these destinations. St. Paul reminds us that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive good or evil according to what he has done in the body. Now if that’s true, our lives should reflect that. And we go astray precisely when we forget that it’s true. So if you want to avoid sin, you would do well to remember that your life will end one day. Maybe you’re in a place in life where you or somebody you know is facing the prospect of dying head on.
Well, just like in the days of the Black Death, this is where the Rs Moriendi, the art of dying well is so incredibly helpful. Now in the book, it contains a short list of questions to ask people who are dying. Now these questions are traditionally ascribed to Saint Anselm, but lists like this actually are older than Anselm. And the point of them was really simple. As Mary Catherine O’Connor explains, getting the dying person to say yes to each of these was a way of trying to move them, to get them to make acts of faith, hope and love so that they could die well. And they reveal the heart of Catholic spirituality in the Middle Ages. They give us kind of a window into what the world was like back then. So what are the questions? Question one, do you believe the articles of the Christian faith as they’ve been determined by the church?
In other words, do you believe in all of the dogmas of the faith? Question two, do you rejoice that you die in the Christian faith? Because we want the person not only to be a Christian, but to actually be thankful to God for the gift of faith. Question three, do you acknowledge that you’ve grievously offended God? Here it’s pretty straightforward. We’re reminded of the reality of sin and the gravity of our sin. Question four, are you sorry that you’ve offended your creator? It’s not enough to know that you’ve sinned. The point here is to inspire contrition and actual turning away from sin. Question five, are you resolved that if God should prolong your life, you will carefully avoid offending him? Mere regret over sin is actually not enough. I mean, remember the case of Judas. We need repentance and actual turning away from sin, coupled with a resolution to avoid sin in the future, even if you think your future might not be very long.
And then question six, do you hope and believe that you will attain eternal salvation not through your own merits, but through the merits of the passion of Jesus Christ? There’s sometimes this caricature of Catholicism where Catholics teach palagianism or works righteousness. And when Catholics point out, not only do we not teach that, our church is the one that condemned pollagius and the catechism pushes pretty strongly against that kind of false teaching. When we push back in that way, we’re often told, “Well, we used to teach works righteousness back in the middle ages. That’s why the reformation had to happen.” Well, here you have an instruction manual for how to prepare a medieval Catholic for death, a very popular instruction manual. And the last question involves making sure that the dying man doesn’t think that he is saved by his works, that he doesn’t think he’s saved by his own merits, that instead he is putting his trust entirely in Jesus Christ.
This sin leads to a beautiful admonition given to the dying man. Come then, while life remains, place all your confidence in this death alone, that it’s Christ’s death alone. Trust in nothing else. To this death, commit your whole self. With this alone, cover yourself. In this death, hide yourself. And if the Lord God will enter into judgment with you, say, Lord, I place the death of Jesus Christ between me and your judgment. Otherwise, I cannot contend against you. And if God should say to you that you’re a sinner, reply, Lord, I place the death of Jesus Christ between you and my sins. And if God shall say to you that you have merited damnation, say, Lord, I place the death of Jesus Christ between you and my evil desserts, that is the damnation that I deserve, and I offer his merits for those which I ought to have, but have not.
In other words, I should have merit enough to get to heaven, but I don’t. I can’t rely on myself to be saved. I have to plead the merits of Jesus Christ. And if God should say to you that he has roth with you, that is angry with you, answer, Lord, I place the death of Jesus Christ between you and your anger. And then you repeat that prayer to help the person dying realize these things. Number one, the faith is true. They should believe they should have faith. Number two, they merit hell so they can hate sin and turn away from it. Number three, that Jesus died for them. And number four, that the merits of Jesus Christ alone will save us from damnation. Now look, admittedly, one of the reasons that I like Halloween is that it’s fun. I enjoy a good thrill. I even enjoy a good fright.
I like dressing up in costumes for fun, as many of you know. And there’s a simplicity to the celebration at Halloween. There’s no complicated meal. There’s no stressful choosing which gifts to give people. You just put on a costume and you give candy to kids. But beneath all of that, I really appreciate the spirituality at the heart of Halloween because I think it’s actually good. I think it is good to remember that good and evil exist. I think it is good to remember that death is real. I think it’s good to remember that life is fleeting. We need to be reminded of that sometimes, so that we know to turn away from the rat race and to turn towards the last things to remember the merits of Jesus Christ. So memento mori, remember your death. And before you jump into the comments to tell me about how actually Halloween is evil because it’s rooted in a pagan festival called Saowen, I will save you the time.
I’ve got good news for you. That’s an old anti-Christian myth that has been debunked. I actually have a whole episode debunking it right here. So for Shameless Popourri, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you and happy Halloween.