Mortality

It's been on my mind lately.

The foolish are afraid of death as the greatest of evils, but wise men seek it as a rest after their toils and as the end of evils. --St. Ambrose of Milan

"A Christian has great difficulty in attaining three things," Abba Isaias the Anchorite says, "grief (over sins), tears, and the continual memory of death. Yet these contain all of the other virtues."

Of the remembrance of death specifically, he writes: "He who succeeds in saying each day to himself, 'today is the last day of my life,' will never willingly sin before God. He, however, who expects to have many years to live, without fail entangles himself in the nets of sin. God sanctifies the soul which is always prepared to give an accounting for its deeds. Whoever forgets the Judgment remains in the bondage of sin."