A skull is not scary, she concluded. “What’s scary is a dead soul.”
The four last things
While the last things are traditionally listed as “death, judgement, heaven, and hell,” the book switches the order to end with heaven instead, so that it comes right before Christmas. The four last things acknowledge what Catholics know: that each person will die, face judgement, and then go either to heaven or hell.
Sr. Danielle Victoria stressed the value of contemplating death now, in order to live life well.
“All of our decisions and how we live our life every day is creating a bond in our heart to our actions and our will with heaven or hell,” she said. “We can be living hell on Earth now because that’s what we’re preparing for. Or we can be living heaven on Earth now, even in the midst of difficulty, because that’s what we’re preparing for.”
The book, she says, leaves readers feeling “invited and encouraged and kind of emboldened to want the good and to face the difficulty.”
“I do think that that’s a big point of the practice of looking at the last things and then to have that leading up to receiving this great gift of Christ and the joy of Christmas,” she said. “It’s kind of like you’re preparing your own gift, yourself for Christ, during that time.”
Fear of hell
Sr. Danielle Victoria acknowledged that there are incorrect ways of approaching memento mori and the last things.
“I think many people can identify with the fact that hell was weighted over them in certain ways,” Sr. Danielle Victoria said, even by their parents. Instead, Sr. Theresa Aletheia invites readers to contemplate death and the last things “through the loving gaze of the Father” while becoming aware of God “inviting you into who you are called to be and how he loves you.”
In a November video message about the new book, Sr. Theresa Aletheia defined memento mori.
“It might be true that we’re mortal and that we are nothing [without God] and that we are sinners and that one day we will die,” she said from Italy, where she is preparing for her final vows. “But it’s also true that we have a savior who loves us deeply and who has saved us.”
Christ “wants to pour that saving grace into our hearts every single day,” she added. “One of the ways that he can do that is when we remember our death and when we go to him and say, ‘Jesus, I am scared of death. Jesus, I am scared of hell. Jesus, I want to go to heaven. Jesus, please help me to become the best person, the person that you want me to be, a person who is full of grace who is close to you, who walks close to you, who grows in holiness.’”
“That’s really what memento mori is about,” she concluded.
The role of art in faith
Sr. Danielle Victoria and Sr. Theresa Aletheia wanted the book itself to be “a reminder, visually, to contemplate their death in light of Christ.”
Sr. Danielle Victoria identified art as one of the fruits of the memento mori books, created by people who reflected on the theme. The book emphasizes this by including the contributions of nearly 30 artists worldwide.
“I feel like artists have a special call to be able to synthesize their own experience so that others can kind of sit in that in a profound way,” she said. “To be able to invite artists to articulate that side of what I feel like memento mori can do for people, this is so exciting.”
In her video message, Sr. Theresa Aletheia revealed that she is most proud of this book, compared to her other memento mori projects. One reason, she said, is the involvement of her fellow sisters, particularly Sr. Danielle Victoria.
Sr. Danielle Victoria’s story
Sr. Danielle Victoria’s hometown is Battle Creek, Michigan, or, as she puts it, “where Kellogg’s cereal is made.” She left to study photography and film at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she also did design work.
“I was a cradle Catholic but I lost my faith through college and had a reversion experience that … radically changed the trajectory of my life,” she told CNA.
She graduated, moved back home, and started attending retreats, where she learned about religious sisters. While she had previously envisioned dedicating her life to her art, she now placed her “gifts on the altar.”
“I just was like, ‘God, you hand those back to me when I can use them for your glory alone.’” she said. “I was like, ‘I’ll scrub toilets and just whatever, I don’t ever have to do anything creative again. I just, I want to be able to sit at your feet, Lord.’”
In the meantime, she worked as a waitress to pay off her student loans. When she met the Daughters of Saint Paul – at the end of a 30-day silent retreat – she said their spirituality captivated her heart.
She entered the Daughters of Saint Paul in 2013 at the age of 30, and made her first vows in 2017. While she spoke from Boston, where the publishing house and motherhouse of the Daughters of Saint Paul is located, she’s hoping to travel to Rome in two years to make her final vows.
During her conversion experience, she said she found that “I couldn’t give what I didn’t have and that I was going to give whatever I am.”
“If I’m filled with myself, I’m going to give myself, if I’m filled with, I don’t know, just distortion, confusion, then that’s what I’m going to propagate,” she explained. “But if I’m filled with Christ…then that is who I’m going to give.”
Right now, as an artist and as a Catholic sister, that means gifting the world with memento mori – just in time for Christmas.
Katie Yoder is a correspondent in CNA’s Washington, D.C. bureau. She covers pro-life issues, the U.S. Catholic bishops, public policy, and Congress. She previously worked for Townhall.com, National Review, and the Media Research Center.
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