But, we know that Life isn't like that. The big realities of life are uncertainty and change. To think that we puny human beings are in control of life or that we understand all the intricacies of our lives is an illusion. Truth and Reality are other Names for God, the One Who is Being and Existence Itself, the One Who made us and Whose Heart shapes the hearts of us all.
Life is all about letting go of the need for certainty, the need to keep a tight grip on everyone and everything that we love, the need to achieve all our dreams, the need to stay healthy. The only way we can live in acceptance and peace is to accept that life changes and we change, and that God lives in every moment ready to meet us. Every moment of our lives can be sacred, as long as we accept that we don't need to know precisely what is happening, or where things are going. If we welcome God in every moment, with courage, faith, and trust, life opens up to wider horizons than we could ever dream of.
Of course, welcoming God in every moment of our lives demands incredible faith! Some of our lives' moments are full of joy and happiness; I'll never forget the moment the man I was crazy about told me that he loved me, and those special moments when I held each of my children for the first time. There are family outings, special ceremonies and celebrations, moments of forgiving and being forgiven, that unify us with others in unexpectedly rich ways.
But there are traumatic moments too: hearing that a loved one or oneself has a serious or terminal illness, or being with a loved one as he or she dies. We all have those terrible memories, those experiences that are "small deaths" for us, the emptying out and negation of our personal desires for how our lives will play out. We fall on our knees, or on our faces, we scream, we rage, and there is not a thing we can do about it. We are helpless. Torn apart.
The Crucified Savior meets us in those moments, ready to give us the strength and courage we need to "lay our lives down" for his sake, to let go of bitterness, to trust that this profoundly new ( and often unwanted) direction for our lives can be transformed by God into a means of growth and salvation for us - if we say "yes" to this wrenching change.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M. says,
"Sooner or later, if you are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life with which you simply cannot cope using your present skill set, acquired knowledge, or willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point, you will stumble over a necessary “stumbling stone” (see Isaiah 8:14). You must “lose” at something, and then you begin to develop the art of losing. This is the only way that Life/Fate/God/Grace/Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey.
"We must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. We must be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide. It is the necessary pattern. Until we are led to the limits of our present game plan and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find our real Source. Alcoholics Anonymous calls it the Higher Power. Jesus calls this Ultimate Source the “living water” at the bottom of the well (see John 4:10-14)."
What can ground us, focus us, through this whirling kaleidoscope of moments, of life experiences - the joyful, the tragic, the glorious, even the "I don't know how I lived through that!" moments? What can carry us through the sufferings and the life-changing small deaths? I'm going to propose something strange and radical, but infinitely practical.
The only way to focus our lives to give them meaning is to see them in the light of eternity, which begins with seeing them through the reality of our eventual, unavoidable death. Life truly begins when we do the ultimate letting go and accept that we will die and also give up on control of knowing how and when we will die. "Memento Mori," Latin for "remember your death," has been a spiritual practice since the earliest days of Christianity, beginning with Jesus who tells us, his disciples, to take up our crosses daily and follow him to Gethsemane, to death, and then through and beyond death, into the joy of eternal life. Remembering the Cross reminds us not only of Jesus' death, and our death, but of Jesus' victory over death.
This is perhaps a hard thing to face in a society which fears death and avoids death as often as possible. There are people who even refuse to go to wakes or funerals. But, thinking routinely about our eventual death is not morbid; it is a way of becoming filled with hope, and actually living life more deeply and meaningfully. There's nothing that teaches us the best way to live here and now than realizing that one day - a day we can't predict - our life on earth will be over. We begin to ask ourselves - "How should I spend this time that I have? What should my priorities be? Is God REALLY the Center of my life?"
"It's no wonder most people try to ignore their impending death or assume it is far in the future. However, ignoring death will not make it go away. And it may even increase anxiety - because the fearsome truth is that death could come suddenly and forcefully for anyone at any time. Only God knows when each person will die, so preparation for death is an essential spiritual practice, regardless of age....
"Following this advice from Scripture and tradition has strengthened my faith and transformed my perspective in a way that has influenced my everyday choices. For example, I regularly follow the advice of St. Ignatius Loyola to imagine myself on my deathbed before making a choice. Doing so has not filled me with fear but rather the opposite. I fear death less and make choices for heaven more."
At a recent Papal Address to a group of pilgrims, Pope Francis said that "Jesus' invitation to "not be afraid" is a call for all Christians to guard the "small flame" of faith within that keeps them from falling into "the precipice of fear" that comes at the moment of death.
Pope Francis asked pilgrims to close their eyes and "think about our own death and imagine the moment that will come when Jesus will take us by the hand and say, 'Come, come with me, get up.' "
"There hope will end and it will be a reality, the reality of life," Pope Francis said. "Jesus himself will come to each of us and take us by the hand with his tenderness, his meekness, his love."
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to routinely imagine, each of us, what Jesus will ask us, and will say to us about our lives, at the moment of our death. Or even ask ourselves, "What do I want Jesus to say to me about my life?"
Sr. Theresa says, "If we belong to the Lord, we need not fear bodily death....Jesus trampled death! In the mystery of the Incarnation, the Son of God humbled himself and took on human flesh in order to defeat death through his own death. Jesus has defeated humanity's greatest foe - permanent death in sin.... In the power of Jesus Christ, the Christian practice of memento mori reaches past the horizon of this life and into the eternal happiness of heaven...With the grace of God, memento mori has the power to change your habits and lead you to holiness....And always bear in mind: the practice of memento mori is more about living than it is about dying."
Sr. Theresa recommends a daily examen, or review of your day. Here's an abbreviated version:
1) STEP ONE: Become Aware of God's Presence
Close your eyes and become present to God dwelling within you through your Baptism. Imagine yourself as a child under God's omniscient, compassionate gaze. Try to visualize yourself stepping out of your self-centeredness to see reality through the loving eyes of God.
2) STEP TWO: Ask for the Holy Spirit's Guidance
Offer a short prayer asking the Holy Spirit to help you to see the day in the light of God's grace.
3) STEP THREE: Review The Day
Ask the questions: "How has God loved me today?" and "How have I loved God and my neighbor today?" Bring both the positive and negative events of the day before God in sorrow and thanksgiving.
4) STEP FOUR: Remember Your Death
Consider the day in view of the last moments of your life. ...In this step, thank God for everything in the day that prepared you for heaven. Ask God for the graces you need to better prepare for the moment of your death.
5) STEP FIVE: Look Toward Tomorrow
Look forward to the next day, and thank God for the gift of another day of life, if it be God's will. Think of the specific events of the following day, especially those for which you need particular graces. Visualize yourself trusting and acting in God's grace as you live both the trying and joyful moments of the next day.
In this unpredictable, roller coaster of a life, we have no control over the forces that surround us. But we do have a choice in how we approach life's inevitable changes and challenges. If we let go and surrender our lives to God and trust that God is present to us in every moment, we have hope that every moment of joy, confusion, and suffering can be transformed and used by God to strengthen us and grow us. And, if we choose to gaze at life through the lens of our own inevitable death, all those joys, challenges, and sufferings come into perspective as steps that lead us through death and into eternity.
The same power that raised Christ from the dead is in you and me. That power of God allows us to face our own deaths without fear or dread, because Jesus has conquered death. In that moment of our own personal death, Jesus will come and take us by the hand. As we look into his eyes, we will see love, and questions about our lives and how we lived them. Through the practice of memento mori, meditating daily on our death, we can learn to make good choices and live our lives well, so we can look without fear or anxiety into the eyes of Christ. And listen for his words, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"