National Catholic Register

Memento Mori: Are You Prepared to Die?

When I was a little girl, I lived in my grandparents’ home, alongside my father and brother. Because of this, I was privy to a lot of early life lessons, particularly related to death. I would ...
Crux

Memento mori – How religious orders remember death

DENVER, Colorado – There’s an old Latin phrase that’s suddenly new again – at least in the realm of Catholic Twitter™. The resurgence of the the Latin phrase “memento mori” (remember your death) is ...
National Catholic Register

Memento Mori: You are Dust and Shall Return to Dust

Many years ago, I belonged to a book club named for the protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius J. Reilly. We called it the IJR Society; in addition to reading books, ...
CNN

How a macabre reminder of death became a Renaissance status symbol

They may appear morbid by today’s standards, but at the turn of the 16th century, they were the height of fashion: palm-sized ivory carvings of skulls, mirrored by human faces, that represent status, ...
Hyperallergic

Luxurious, Terrifying Visions of Death in Renaissance Memento Mori

Finials of a Chaplet (France or southern Netherlands, 1530 with mid-19th-century insertion) (ca. 1850–1860), elephant ivory (courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London) BRUNSWICK, Maine — The first ...