Memento Mori

"Remember your last days..." 

Sirach 28:6

We had an exercise before in a retreat I attended, where we had to write our own eulogy. It's a good way to reflect on how we want to live our life. Most of us would not want to be praised for how big our house is, how high our salary was, how many degrees we have, or how much time we spent at work. Usually we would want to be honored for our good relationships, how we helped and encouraged others, how we were generous, how we took time to be present for our family especially our aging parents, or someone who was sick, or in prison. 

In the book of Sirach, we read: "Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Think of the commandments, of the Most High's covenant; hate not your neighbor, and overlook faults." A lot of people don't want to think of death, but almost everyone wants to go to heaven. The thing is, to go to heaven, we have to think about death. 

Francis Chan, the preacher, told a story about his grandma. They were watching a play, and Francis asked how she was liking it. She fretted and said, "I don't know if this is where I want to be when Jesus returns." 

Do we think like Francis' grandma? "Memento mori" is Latin for "Remember you will die." It is good for us to think sometimes, "Is this where I want to be when Jesus comes for me?"