The Christian trust is something like this, that what we accomplish here below will be taken up into God's eternity and elevated, transfigured.

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vaat, the host and the senior publishing director at Word on Fire.

Death is a topic that most of us try to avoid, so why does Catholicism teach that we should actually meditate regularly on our death?

And how does Christianity answer the challenges posed by death? That's what we'll be discussing today with Bishop Robert Barron who joins us from our Rochester studio. Bishop, good to see you.

Hey Brandon, good morning. Good to see you as always.

Several months ago, you attended a meeting with your brother, Bishops. It was your regular USCCB gathering and at that meeting, the Bishops elected a handful of representatives to send to Rome in October for the forthcoming Senate on Senateality.

And you were elected. It kind of was kept under wraps for many, many months, but the Pope just publicly ratified those appointments.

So tell us what this event is. I know we've actually talked about it a couple of times in this show, but what are you personally expecting and hoping for at the Senate?

Well, I don't know. This Senate will be different, I think. I was at the last one. I was elected as well to the Senate on young people.

And then what I think was a bit more straightforward that we knew the topic and we were just going to go and the Bishops were going to debate and then we issue a statement.

This one, I'm not as sure. I don't think this session will result in any kind of statement because there's going to be a follow-up session.

They also have talked about not having so many formal speeches. Last time around, every delegate was able to give a four minute speech. I don't think that's going to happen this time.

My impression is it'll be more like small group work. And the instrumental labor is as well. Last time was like a trial document. You might say it was a pretty well formulated document. This one is more questions to guide our conversation.

So it'll be a different Senate. Also, we're not going to gather in the Senate hall. I understand. We'll be in the Paul VI audience area, I think.

So anyway, I don't know for sure what this will be. It'll be a bit of an adventure to find out.

I'm sure we'll be talking a lot about it here on the word on fire show. In fact, I believe word on fire has plans to offer some sort of coverage around the Senate in October.

So we'll definitely have more to say as the month nears. For now though, let's talk about the topic of death. We're nearing the 400th episode of the word on fire show.

I don't think we've ever done one on the topic of death, which is interesting. You know, for centuries, Christians have practiced a discipline known as Memento Mori, maybe translated as remember death or remember your death.

Where did this practice come from? And why is it a healthy discipline?

Well, it's pretty ancient. It goes back to the, you know, monastic traditions. There was a mother telling about this. I was a little kid. She thought it was fascinating.

I think it's certain trap is communities. They were encouraged every day to dig a shovel of their own grave. So that was the Memento Mori.

I think two of Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones, where's this big ring with a death's head on it? And he was once asked, you know, why do you wear that ring?

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