Keeping an Eye on Death
William C. Graham (with assistance from Timothy Backous, OSB)

​I was educated by Benedictine Sisters and Monks for 16 years. Later, I worked with and for Benedictines at two of their colleges and universities for over a decade. Along the way, I’ve become pretty well acquainted with the monastic way of life and St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries.

One of the passages in the Holy Rule that always calls me to attention is St. Benedict’s admonition from chapter four: “Keep death daily before your eyes.”

 

With that in mind, some years ago I found a carpenter who made a casket for me, fashioned out of maple and mahogany. I asked her to make it with removable shelves inside it, so that until my death, I can it as a bookshelf. On one of the shelves is a framed bit of calligraphy that states the reminder from the Rule, “Keep death daily before your eyes.”

Once when visiting a monastery, I went with one of the monks into the recreation room used by the junior monks. At one end of the room, surrounded by chairs, was a casket made in the monastic wood shop, and on top of it sat a television. My host pointed to it, laughed, and said, “This is one way the younger monks keep death daily before their eyes.”

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There is one more interpretation of Benedict’s advice that is at least equally important, and maybe even more important. I think Benedict was referencing an insight from the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Romans: “Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”

 

Perhaps this is what Benedict had in mind when teaching his monks. We don’t tend to think of baptism as dying, but more often as rebirth or new life. The emphasis is not death but life. The ritual of baptism by full immersion, going into the water and coming up and out, is clearly a sign of death and resurrection.

 

The candidate would enter the baptismal pool from the west and turn his back on Satan and the power of evil. He would renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty promises. I think that sometimes the one renouncing Satan would also spit to the west as a sign of rejection and repulsion. Then, facing the east, where the Sun rises, he would profess his faith and then be plunged down into the water three times, and come up gasping for air.

 

The beloved new member came up from the water as the fruit of the union between Christ and his Church. Next, he is anointed with chrism, a fragrant perfumed oil, and then clothed from neck to ankles in a white garment. Those present for the celebration would reach out to touch this newest member, a holy icon of Christ, seeking to get just a bit of that precious oil on their hands to rub on their own faces in sweet memory of their own baptism.

Most of us were baptized as infants in a softer, much more gentle experience. But we too have died and risen with Christ. In consequence, daily, hourly, minute by minute, we are alive in Christ, which calls us to live like him and love like him.

 

Baptism means dying to selfishness, indifference, and hate. It is turning away from a tendency to hold grudges, to be dishonest, or to pursue power rather than attending to the needs of the poor.

 

The baptized Christian is to be an icon of sanctity whom everyone wants to encounter. This, I believe, is what Benedict had in mind when he told his monks to keep death daily before their eyes.

 

When we celebrate the Eucharist, we look to the ultimate reunion, where we will be gathered in communion as saints among the saints in the halls of heaven. Fed with the bread of heaven and given to drink from the cup of salvation, we continue on the path from baptism to the fullness of the Reign of God.