Memento Mori

So I’m not sure if you know this or not, but there’s something you need to know.... 

You’re going to die. Yes, you’re going to die. I know, I know... that’s probably not what you were hoping to hear in the homily today. But that’s the truth. The truth of our lives as human beings, is that one day somewhere, somehow, each one of us will die. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

I remember when I was about 12 or 13 years old, my older brother would ask me, “If you had one wish, any wish you want, except you can’t ask for more wishes, what would you wish for and why?” And so I took my brother seriously and thought about it. If I had one wish, what would I wish for?... And finally I concluded, “I would wish for happiness!” I thought about money, I thought about toys, I thought about all the things I would wish for and I realized that I wanted all those things because I wanted happiness!

I would say much of my youth and even young adult life was search and seeking for happiness... often in all the wrong places. In money, in friendships, in dating, in partying, in drinking. And what I found was that at one point or another, all of those things left me empty afterwards. The money was never enough, the relationships would come and go, the highs and buzzes would leave me hungover. None of it gave me the lasting happiness I was looking for.

All this came together when one Sunday, my brother woke me up to the news that one of our friends had died in a car accident. He was only 19, I was 19 at the time. I had never thought about death, not about my death, not about anyone else’s. Suddenly, I began to feel like all my seeking, all my searching for happiness was in vain...

“Vanity of vanities!” the author of Ecclesiastes says. Many scholars say that it was actually King Solomon who wrote Ecclesiastes or at least that the book of Ecclesiastes is about King Solomon. If you remember who King Solomon was, he was the son of King David, and God had asked him what he wanted from God. Solomon asked for wisdom and so God gave him wisdom. And because of his wisdom, he was so successful that he acquired lots of wealth, power and wives. So much so that he had to create large storehouses for his wealth. And also because of that, he began to go astray, and began creating temples to other idol gods for his wives. And Ecclesiastes is in some sense his last words in his final days. It is Solomon’s final evaluation at the end of his life. And his evaluation? In the face of his death, all things are vanity!

In some sense, Ecclesiastes is one of the most depressing books in the Bible. Pretty much, the book of Ecclesiastes says that death covers everything under the sun. That tragedy befalls everything and everyone. What Solomon is saying, is I’ve tried it all and I’ve lost it all. And now that I am facing death, all is vain!

Solomon is concluding, “Death is the final word. Death is too powerful, my own wisdom, my own wealth, my own work is worthless!” “There is no way around death!”

And then comes Jesus.

One day, weeks after my friend had passed away, I was standing outside on a balcony looking out at a pond, and I began, one of my first honest prayer to the God at the time. I told him, “What’s the point of it all? What’s the point of life, my life, if in the end, we all face death?” Why can’t I find true lasting happiness?

After some tears, and then being silent for once, I began to listen. The birds flocking, the wind rustling in the trees, the water rippling. And I heard God say to me, “All this is good.” I heard. “I’ve created you good.” 

It was all I needed to hear. To hear that not all vain, my life is not vain but instead my life is good and that it is from God. What I realized in my heart, was that I’d been spending my life up until that point, doing it my way. Instead of asking God what was his way that he created me to live my life. Instead of asking God for the road map, I preferred to wander on my own. Vanity of vanities.

The response to the cry of Ecclesiastes is Jesus. Ecclesiastes says, “There is no other way beyond death! All is vain” Jesus says, “I am the way.... I am the way, the truth, and the life!” “All is not vain, all is grace!” Jesus doesn’t show us the way around death, instead he shows us the way through death. 

In the light of Jesus, what is death? Jesus nails death on a cross for all to see, and now when we look at death on the cross, what do we see?… We see life, we see love, we see beauty. Why? Because death is not the final word. Death is not all powerful. 

Today, put to death everything that is not of Christ. Nail to the cross everything that keeps us from Jesus. As St. Paul says, “put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed” and put on Christ. So that having died with Christ, you will also discover the glory of the Resurrection of Christ in Heaven.

Death has no sting. Death is not the end. Christ is forever.