Death and dying Archives - Page 2 of 4

Realizing today may be one’s last day changes how one lives, pope says

Nov 17, 2017

During his morning Mass on Friday, Pope Francis said it does people good to recognize they will not be on this earth forever. “To think about death is not a terrible reverie, it’s reality. If it’s terrible or not depends on me, what I think about it, but whether it will be, it will be,” he said.

Parish cemeteries: A labor, but also a labor of love

Nov 2, 2017

Parish cemeteries are “not all that uncommon” in the Midwest, said Grant Emmel, who is charged with keeping tabs on the 125 cemeteries in the Madison Diocese. “It’s the perfect ministry, because it’s right there, it’s right in the middle of your parish … our parents are there, our grandparents are there, our kids are there.”

Neglected works of mercy: Burying, praying for forgotten dead
- Nov 1, 2017
Adrian Cruz established the Arimathea Society on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows to gather laypeople together for spiritual works of mercy, prayers for the dead, offering Mass for the poor souls in purgatory and preparing for burials. “Praying for the poor souls in purgatory is often overlooked or regarded as ‘old-fashioned’ in many modern American Catholic minds,” he said.

By Carol Glatz
Memento mori – How religious orders remember death
- Oct 31, 2017
The phrase “Memento mori” (remember your death) became popular in medieval Christianity – death was especially poignant as the plague spread throughout Europe and Asia, killing millions of people within the span of just a few years. “Memento mori” was such a popular religious theme in this period that it inspired a genre of art, music and literature.

By Mary Rezac
How the dead danced with the living in medieval society
- Oct 31, 2017
Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) murals typically depicted decaying corpses dancing amid representative figures of late medieval society, ranked highest to lowest: A pope, an emperor, a bishop, a king, a cardinal, a knight and down to a beggar, all ambling diffidently toward their mortal end while the corpses frolic with lithe movements and gestures.

By Ashby Kinch