What is your Memento Mori? It need not be a skull. Mine is a red bus.
The act of placing a skull on your desk is known as keeping a
"Memento Mori" to inspire thoughts of your death. A
time-honored practice indeed, some of the big saints such as St Jerome
and St Teresa of Avila set a skull before their eyes as a memo of
mortality. Perhaps their stainless souls owed a debt to keeping a skull
in their sights, shocking their senses into submission to God.
There is a revival of interest in having a skull as a "Memento
Mori." This is quite fascinating considering the absolute flight from
the idea of death and aging present in modern culture. There
is a poll running to discover how many people know the meaning of
"Memento Mori". Sr Theresa Noble was on The Jennifer Fulwiler Show to
discuss why she is keeping a skull close at hand.
— Sr. Theresa Aletheia (@pursuedbytruth) November 9, 2017
I thought about getting a skull, but my reaction was one of tough indifference. I
might be unfeeling and apathetic but a skull would not prompt in me the awareness
that one day my life will end and my soul will sunder from my flesh, my
soul will fly to God to be saved or damned. I'm careful not to
give into my vanity and get one, for me t'would be more of a prop
designed to impress people of personal holiness; something that would
get me a lot of raised eyebrows from the girls I live with here in West
London.
Plus, it's probably a little
harder to come by a real human skull in 2017 London than it was for St Jerome, who had access to thousands of them in the catacombs he was fond
of frequenting. I'm not sure a plastic one from a Halloween Shop
would have quite the right kind of solemnising effect on me. (If anyone
has a real one handy, I might at least consider it....)
So, am I never to have a "Momento Mori," I asked myself?
Then I remembered I already have one - a red bus.
It came to mind when my dear friend Sonia
and I were on a skite around London and we were both being extremely
cautious crossing the roads (eyes peeled back) and we compared notes
about how we were both nearly killed in road accidents...
The
very thing that acts as a Momento Mori for me is a red bus which
reminds me instantly of a serious accident I was in - where had a
miracle not occurred - I would have lost my life. One Irish summer's
day when the sun sulked behind ash-like clouds, I was a teenager on my
holidays milling around Cork City. I had just gotten off a red bus,
only to walk behind the bright red back of the bus, into the parallel
lane of oncoming traffic where I was struck by a truck. The impact was
so great for a mere few seconds I felt my brain bounce violently around my skull
like a ball, before feeling my skull was broken, my body was hit and
thrown to the ground where I was unconscious, slipping briefly into
consciousness, becoming aware I was in harrowing pain as though my bones
had shattered. The type of pain where you *know*
the end is nigh.
Then
in an instant I was lifted up and absorbed in a great white space, a
delicious peace came over me. I could see all around me, every part of
the white space at once, because I was not seeing with eyes. My soul
thought, "this must be
death." To which an answer came, "no, this is not your death, your time
has not come. I am sending you back to the world 'til I call you to
Me."
Again in an instant I was lifted
back to earth; a joy possessed me and as I came to consciousness,
hearing the voices of on-lookers whisper, "she must be dead" and "if
she is alive she'll be paralysed for life". One woman was hysterical,
she thought I had tried to commit suicide when what had happened to me
was an accident. "She looks at rest, but if she lives she'll have very
painful injuries," said one.
And yet the
crushing pain had completely left me, and I felt not a twinge but a
peace of such sweetness as I lay in the grime and grit of the ground,
the wheels of all the other cars in traffic surrounding my head. A
happier experience I had not had.
The
paramedics came and on finding I was still alive, they were like
children on Christmas day, "The fellow who rang us told us you were
dead!" A smiled played on my lips and I was in an ecstasy that
surpassed all understanding. At the hospital the doctors had such solemn
faces on when they began to examine me but their sorrow turned to
jubilation and they whooped with laughter when they found I had not sustained one injury, but I felt
better than I ever remembered feeling, as though I had been totally
renewed.
People
assumed I was badly bruised, and at the time I agreed because to say I
had no bruises at all made it sound too spectacular. But I had not one
scratch, not one bruise. Now that I've grown to maturity - I can see
that the harrowing pain I felt at the impact - and then the pain totally
disappearing in the flick of an eye is the sign for me it was
miraculous.
I may have been a young
teenager but until being struck by the truck I would best be described
as completely faithless; wanting total estrangement from the mere idea
of God.
I was a vegetarian,
heavily into animal welfare and I had adored and even worshiped atheist
song-writers and pop-stars who adored animals and thought they had a
higher status than humans. And I had thought death was surely a great
nothingness, like a heavy sleep while the body dissolved in brown earth
like a tooth rotting in a glass of coca-cola. Yet, I resisted the
allure of atheism not wanting to commit to it, pledging no belief in
God was still defining a relationship with God, even if it was a
non-relationship. During times of great suffering in childhood I had
cried out to God and prayed, but had never, never felt a smidgen of
consolation, not one answered prayer, only a great black nothingness.
Atheism appealed because it helped me evade the pain of feeling unloved
by telling myself there was no One to give such love, so to seek such
love was an impossible dream. And at that time in modern Ireland the
"cool" people and the "smart" ones were the ones who scorned belief in
God. As I have written elsewhere I was being bullied and didn't want to
embrace belief in God and have one more thing that made me subject to
being called "backward."
Thanks to the bracing encounter with the truck and the mysterious protection from its force, I
had been raised from total darkness of purgation to the bright light
of illumination. I had been saved from death - because the Author of
Life had a different plan other than the grave for me at the age of 15 -
and I knew He had power over life and death. It just wasn't possible
for me not to believe in God anymore.
My
Memento Mori is a red bus because it is the last thing I saw before
being struck by the truck. Everyone's death will be unique to them, so
is it perhaps fitting that their Momento Mori ought be individualised?
Here's my question for you: what is your Memento Mori? What is it that
instantly calls to your mind your death? If you suffer from a
life-threatening allergy to peanuts, might the humble peanut be your
Memento Mori? If you're a recovering alcoholic might it be whisky? If
you've had an illness or condition that nearly claimed your life, would
it be hospital needles? If you nearly drowned at sea, might it be a
picture of the ocean? If you would like to take part, please use the hash-tag #MyMementoMori
I am filing this piece under Mary O'Regan Soul Story, which will be the tag for posts of this personal nature.
