Memento Mori

Propers: Ash Wednesday, A.D. 2018 B

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

200 years ago it was not uncommon for philosophical societies to have “chambers of reflection,” darkened rooms in which one would sit in order to contemplate the mysteries of time, mortality, and the truths of God.

The first thing you’d notice upon entering such a chamber would be a skull on the desk, put there as a memento mori, a reminder of death. St Jerome kept a skull on his desk while translating the Bible for that very reason. Next to it would be an hourglass, reminding us of how little time we have, and of how swiftly fall the grains of sand from one end of the glass to the other.

On the wall would be a scythe, the symbol of Father Time, recalling how often the Bible speaks of the Resurrection as a great harvest, at which the fruitful grains will be gathered into God’s great granary, while the chaff is to be thrown into the fire. And of course there would be a light, a candle or a lantern, representing the light of truth, morality, and religion—the Light of Christ revealing God to the world.

There would further be upon the desk a bit of bread and water, symbolizing simplicity, along with little bowls of mercury, sulfur, and salt—symbols drawn from alchemy, representing transformation and refinement. Mercury and sulfur are the yin and yang of the universe, the elementary principles that make up everything and everyone, while the salt is the particular form that each thing takes, the precise combination of light and dark, hot and cold, wet and dry.

Alchemy, a philosophy of transformation, teaches people to break down imperfect forms into simpler elements, that they may then be recombined into nobler, purer forms. One can see how this would lead the visitor to think upon the good life, and how we might better ourselves in the little span given unto each of us.

And so in this little room we have a microcosm of human existence: fleeting time, looming death, a little light of truth, the struggle to live simpler, nobler lives in the face of adversity, and at the last the promise of homecoming and harvest, gathered into our Father’s barn, the fruits of our lives preserved, the chaff burned away.

In many ways, this is what Lent is for us. It is a chamber of reflection not in space but in time. It is a period of 40 days for reflection, repentance, and turning to our God. Lent is the call to simplify our lives, freeing ourselves from the vices and superfluities of life, that we may be freed to welcome the Messiah; to accompany Him on the long, dark walk to Calvary; and to serve those most in need with humility, generosity, and gentleness in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Whenever the number 40 appears in the Bible or in the life of the Church, it represents a time of new birth. The ancients knew quite well that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a pregnant woman to come to term, so whenever we see 40 of anything in the Scriptures—40 days, 40 weeks, 40 years—we must read this as a time of tribulation, suffering the pangs of labor, yet enduring these pains in the knowledge that they lead to new life.

Lent began as a time of solidarity. The early Church preferred to baptize new Christians upon the Vigil of Easter. And so the catechumenate would undergo 40 days of fasting and instruction in preparation for their new life and new birth in Christ. The rest of the Church—those already baptized—would undergo 40 days of repentance in preparation for Holy Week, yes, but also to stand alongside and support those who would be newly welcomed as members of the Body of Christ at Easter.

That’s what it’s all about, really: Baptism. In Baptism we are joined to the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, already died for us, and to His own eternal life already begun. The sacramental waters do not simply wash us but in fact drown us. We die, in Baptism, to ourselves, to our sins. But the waters of death are also the waters of new birth. We rise from the waters to new life in Christ, made members of His Body the Church, with His own deathless Holy Spirit now burning within us. We are raised up that our whole lives may now be lives of repentance, of turning to Christ, returning to the waters of our Baptism, forever dying, forever rising, until that day when we rise to die no more.

Think about that. Think about what that means. We need no longer fear death, for we have already died the death that matters—the death of Christ upon the Cross. We are free! What then is left for us, but to use the time that we have on this earth to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God?

Remember, O mortal, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return. All of our worries, all our anxieties, all our futile pursuits, shall end in the dust of the grave. And only those things made new in Christ—love of God, love of neighbor, joy in the presence of our Lord and in the wonders of His Creation—shall accompany us into the world to come.

Our journey begins now with the 40 days of Lent.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.