Memento Mori

just a little tantrum about idolatry and politics 💀

This letter is free for you to read, but it wasn’t free for me to write. It would mean so much to me if you could take a minute to prayerfully discern becoming a full subscriber. Our full subscribers keep the lights on, but they also get access to our entire archives, summer read-alongs, Q & As, and whatever else my faithful feminist brain dreams up. If you want more essays on Catholic feminism, upgrade your subscription.

I was recently with a group of friends where we laughed about the differences between the Catholic faith and some Joel-Osteen-vibes evangelicals. Them: Jesus loves you so much, he gives you riches and a long life and a glamorous home! Catholics: Jesus loves you so much, he lets you be rolled over hot coals and martyred!

It’s no secret that Catholics can be a bit macabre. We pray in front of bones and send them on little tours. I keep a third-class relic in my Lululemon at all times. We dig people up and check out their body sometimes before canonizing them. We talk to dead people.¹ We are high-church folk with candles and incense and bells. We believe we drink blood every weekend. We’re all in on the reality of demons, angels, and spirits.

And we really, really enjoy reminding each other Memento Mori.

Memento Mori: in Latin, remember you will die.

I’m going to die. You’re going to die. We all, every single one of us, will eventually gasp our last cackly breath and keel over. For our many faults, Catholics have an incredibly healthy relationship with death. It could be in 30 years or 2 years or tomorrow, and what then? What will we have to answer for?

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” - Dumbledore

Lately I’ve been walking through an extremely painful situation with a person in my life—one of those infamous politics-induced separations where things are said and boundaries are crossed and apologies are withheld. It is excruciating and walking around with it feels like a pebble in my shoe that pokes my softest spots. Those am-I-actually-a-good-person spots; those am-I-living-out-the-Gospel spots. I’ve made it through a long time truly believing that if I simply heard people and tried to understand, if I prayed and was kind, if I avoided certain topics, if I saw things from others’ perspectives and was generous in assumption, if I constantly acknowledged nuance, I could will relationships to stay intact. But they didn’t.

I can not wait for this election to be over, and not because I want to stop getting 19 political texts a day or because I think suddenly everyone will skip off into the sunset clutching each other’s hands. This relationship isn’t likely to ever be repaired. But because I am so desperate for people to stop absolutely obsessing over what this person said about taxes or that person said about the other person or whose rally was bigger or who won the debate or whose podcast interview went on too long.

Because we are all going to die one day, and who the president was while you were alive is going to be absolutely minuscule in terms of the meaningfulness of your life.

I can already hear people shrieking from the rafters about how this does matter to their life; about how I must live in some type of cushiony ball of luxury privilege to have the audacity to say that there are more important things than who the president of the United States is. And while I have no problem telling you that I’ve been given many privileges in my life, that isn’t why I’ve landed on the conclusion that we all need to take a giant deep breath.

I didn’t say it didn’t matter. I said it does not matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Because it’s a balance, right? Because as Christians, we need to care about the world around us. We can’t step over Lazarus on our doorstep, cheerfully reminding him that blessed are the poor! We can’t just wave away politics because they don’t affect us. We are called to be a light in the world and called to share the name of Jesus. Christ says over, and over, and over again that we must care for the poor:

Matthew 25:31-46: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

I’ve spent the last few years writing about trafficking and abortion and violence and poverty; for God’s sake², I obviously think these things matter! But care for a cause can become idolatry, the same as anything else. This is my issue with liberation theology. Jesus came to bring us to himself.

The sin I see people committing in the name of Their Just and Righteous Cause—calumny, gossip, slander, hatred of their fellow man, unimaginably cruel words spat at family members—is appalling. Everyone loves to song-and-dance about how Jesus flipped tables but seem to forget that for the vast majority of his ministry he was patient, kind, and gathered in the outcasts. WE are the brood of vipers in this story, guys. WE are Peter, insisting that we’d never betray Jesus until we get a little socially uncomfortable and quickly deny him to salvage our clout.

There was a time in my life when I gave a lot of energy to minute political happenings. I had a Twitter, back before Musk³ made it his playground. Nowadays, I listen to two podcasts and read a lot of books. I get one vote, and yeah, it matters. I also have one soul, and it matters much, much more. I have three souls to shape and form and disciple, and theirs matter even more than that (not theologically, but to me.)

I’m thankful that I have the attention span for books, and that I live in a house with a fireplace and endless cups of cider. Yes, the election and news are aggravating—just as COVID was aggravating, and the plague, and the days when people got cholera from drinking contaminated water, and civil war and concentration camps and school shootings. In any case, what matters isn’t what’s on the news today—it’s what we choose to do about it, and the effect that choice has on our eternal souls.

I don’t even go to Mass anymore because I’m so disgusted by how our church handled COVID, I see someone on the internet say. I can’t go to Mass anymore and just be surrounded by bigots, a real-life acquaintance says. What, exactly, is the alternative? Sitting around on your couch rage-gram’ing for your cause du jour? That’s more helpful? That’s your grand plan?

It gives me a headache to stop and realize just how short our lives are. Hundreds of thousands of years and here we are; basically flashes in the pan. We walk this earth for such a short time—what, 100 years or so at the absolute most? Most of us less? And then, an eternity we can’t really picture or fathom.

“Keep death before one's eyes daily.” - St. Benedict

If you sell your soul to get a bunch of political likes on Twitter, what good is that? When the bus or the COVID or the heart attack or the gun or the cancer comes, will we have adequately rooted out the sin in our lives? Or simply pushed away people attempting to love us because they don’t fit into the social and political box we’ve tried to shove them into?

We see only a small sliver of the world around us. We see the tippity-top of an iceberg, underneath which is an entire ocean of truth. Nobody’s obituary ever says who they voted for. Remember, you will die. We will all have things to answer for when we reach St. Peter and the gates of Heaven. For the love of God⁴, don’t have yours be dumbass tweets and an obsession with cable news.

We somehow have to simultaneously care deeply about the world around us and keep it in its proper perspective. That it’s one quick spark of time; one speck of life. That it’s temporary. That a Kingdom awaits grander than any you could have envisioned.

Memento Mori. Remember, you will die.

And then, you will live.

Mary, Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States—pray for your rowdy little children down here. Thanks Mama.

Hallowe’en

by Sheri-Ann O’Shea

Oh! Hallowe’en is not about the grave
Or ghosts or horrors fit to make men rave
It’s not about black witches and black cats
Or goats or toads or spider webs or bats
There’s nought in it of skeletons in chains
Or blood or leering heads protruding brains
Or grinning pumpkins lighted from within
Or sound recordings making dreadful din
The moans and groans, the creaking door, the screams
The notion that your nightmares aren’t mere dreams
What sickness is it in us that craves fear?
And what perverse delight holds evil dear?
What view of education and of care
Sends children trick-or-treating every year?

All Hallow’s Eve anticipates a Feast
The godly from the bonds of earth released
The glory of the saints in heav’n above
Their joyful ecstasy of endless love
Whose brightness fills our eyes and draws us on
To go where faithful souls alone have gone
If they, like us, were weak and sinful men
They give us hope that we may rise again
And tread the path of Calvary to the Cross
Nor turn aside nor dread no earthly loss
They all behold us with the eyes of friends
Each one to some lost lamb his arm extends
Oh no! there’s really nothing fearful here
Just members of a family most dear
And over all there reigns the goodliest King –
They see and love and are possessed by Him.

On My Nightstand 

• Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson: I really like Jennifer Robson’s novels (and we now share an editor. 😉) They’re historical, cozy, smart, not a ton of graphic violence or sex scenes, and just like a warm cup of tea. This one is about a World War 1 volunteer nurse and her brother’s best friend, who happens to be a surgeon…you know what’s coming, folks! It’s love!

• Mass Trial Shines a Light on Rape Culture in France: Read about this case, throw up, and never ask if we live in a rape culture ever again.

• A Woman is a Human Person: I am so looking forward to this series from Kerri Christopher on Word on Fire, a writer I always enjoy. “I’m worried about the girls of this generation, who are more prone to anxiety, depression, and self-harm than any generation of girls on record. Not only are their teen years haunted by online bullying, pressure to mutilate and/or sell their bodies, and the normalization of ‘branding’ themselves on social media, but they’re also offered very little vision of what healthy adult womanhood looks like. Instead, women are arguing about careers vs. tradwifery; the political ‘right’ to end their own child’s life; and whether or not a woman, in principle, belongs in a significant political seat.”

---

In case you missed these Letters:

That's Not What "Gaslighting" Means

You're Still Missing the Point

I'm Not Celebrating Ilona Maher's SI Cover

---

Did you know I have another newsletter?

It’s true! Coffee with Claire is my (100% free) monthly newsletter about my various writing projects, behind-the-scenes of author life, and sneak peeks of my upcoming books. It’s sort of like if we were getting an almond milk latte and you asked, “hey, how’s that writing thing going?”

1. We ask saints to intercede for us but we do not engage in 2-way communication with the dead…important distinction!

2. Literally

3. I’m not anti-Musk. In transparency, we own a Tesla. I did watch the video of those chopsticks catching that spaceship-thingy.

4. Again, literally