THE TRANSIENT EXPERIENCE OF BEING ALIVE
“What you are now, we once were. What we are now, you will become.”
This inscription ca be read inside the ancient church Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome.
Here, the bones and mummies of over 4,000 Cauchin friars who passed away between 1528 and 1870, are arranged along the walls of various chapels.
The purpose is to remind the visitors that life is ephemeral, and death eternal.
Time is a peculiar phenomenon.
As children, we often experience that the world begins and ends with ourselves.
It is difficult to fathom that our parents once were our age, or that we will one day be adults. To imagine that everything already existed before we were born, and that it will continue existing after we are gone.
This is what the church inscription wants to remind us of – our fleeting existence in the fabric of human existence, that we are only one singular thread among billions, though of course all interwoven, and together they constitute the vastness of human experience.
In Portugal, a few miles outside of Lisbon, another chapel has been made from skulls and bones. Capela dos Ossos was built in the 17th century, at the initiative of three Franciscan monks, who wanted to create an experience for the local population to reflect on the transience of life, through a clear allegory of death.
In total, the chapel includes more than 5,000 bones and skulls that adorn its walls, ceilings and columns.
Interestingly, and even though this Èvora-based chapel is the best known, the regions of Algave and Alentejo cointain five more “bone chapels”, erected for similar reasons.
This kind of religious structure has existed for centuries in Europe, largely made possible because cemeteries in the past were very small, and so remains would be exhumed years after burial, to make room for others in the same place. This practical reason made it possible to communicate in a more symbolic way, to emphasize to the church visitors that life in this material dimension is limited, but in the spiritual realm and in the afterlife, existence is eternal.
In modern society, death has become detached from everyday life. Serious illness, death and grief are subjects many find it difficult to discuss, as these events and experiences are rarely part of popular culture or integrated in everyday discussions. Perhaps this why these churches fill contemporary visitors with amazement.
A silence surrounds the topic of death and so we tend to avoid it. But this silence has created a void in our minds. Could this be why more and more people today define themselves as spiritual, and why there is a revival in the practice of symbolically charged rituals?
There is so much more to life than what meets the eye, and to be reminded of the conditions and prerequisites of our existence is to consider the wonder that is not only life, but also what comes after.
In this way, we can truly learn to live in the now, and to appreciate each and every day that we are still alive.
Photographed at Capela dos Ossos.
