📿 Musings from Monks
‘Musings from Monks’ is an occasional series that explores insights from the writings of monks, mystics, and martyrs. These short guided contemplations are designed to deliver meditations, prompts, and practices. May they help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a contemplative life.
‘Your time here is short, very short; take another look at how you spend it.’
Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of a man who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience, would it?
Why not keep clear of vice instead of running away from death?
If you aren’t fit to face death today, it’s doubtful you will be by tomorrow; besides, tomorrow is an uncertain quantity; you have no guarantee that there will be any tomorrow—for you. …
Again and again, people who looked forward to a long life were caught out by it and called away quite unexpectedly.
Live in this world like some stranger from abroad, dismissing its affairs as no concern of yours; keep your heart free and trained up towards God in heaven—you have no lasting citizenship here.
If you hope to live well and wisely, try to be, here and now, the man you would want to be on your deathbed.
Your time here is short, very short; take another look at how you spend it. […]
+Adapted from Meditations on Death
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380—1471) was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the anonymous author of The Imitation of Christ. This devotional book has been considered one of the most influential works in Christian literature.
Contemplation: ‘Thinking About Death’
‘Think as a Mortal’ is one of over one hundred maxims said to have been inscribed upon a stone monument at Delphi. Likewise, countless paintings (e.g., see above) depict monks and philosophers contemplating their mortality.
