Thinking On Our Deaths
- May 21, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 14, 2024
We Catholics have this habit of thinking about death often. Many of us think about it so often that we have what you may call a school of thought around death, or at least a mantra of sorts: Memento Mori. Why? For several reasons. One, because death is the one thing that we can be sure of, it will come for us all, none will escape it. It comes for the Christian and the Atheist alike, the good man and the bad, the young and the old. Another, we Christians can dwell on it often because it is our gateway to Heaven - we cannot get there without first dying on this earth. And another reason we dwell on it, life finds meaning in death - and what I mean is this: we have only so long on this earth, and the virtues people speak over us when we have passed will be the good things that we accomplished while living (having a good family, loving others well, giving our time in service, witnessing God to others).
I will not spoil the podcast that is linked below, I'll give you the time to listen to it and develop your own thoughts. But in brief, I want you to come to the bonfire with some questions in mind, a specific few questions. When you are dying in a hospital room, how much of your family will be there at your end? What will you express as a regret in life? What do you want your funeral to be like? When you are gone, what will those people you've left behind in this life say about you?
When you get into the podcast, the guys usually spend the first several minutes bantering and having fun, so if you want to get to the meat of the conversation then jump to minute 6:30. And take note of what Gomer says, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
Here is a link to Spotify, and a link to Castbox, two pretty popular ways to get the podcast.
Article written for the Smoke&Flame men's bonfire night, by Ethan Hall
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