Meditation for November 4, Death

At the abbey Saint Bavon, at Gand - at the present time a mu­seum of engraved stones - is found the memorial slab of the famous painter who began the picture in the cathedral, The Adoration of the Lamb, which he worked at until his death in 1426.

This slab used to be in the transept of the cathedral; the con­stant tread of feet wore much of it away; an incrustation of marble that represented a skeleton holding before it a brass plaque can still be seen; but the Flemish verses written on the metal can no longer be read. This is the inscription: "Take example from me, you who tread on me. I was once like you; but now I am stretched out beneath your feet. Neither advice, nor art, nor medicine, have helped me. My name was Hubert van Eyck. Now I am the prey of worms."

Someone deciphered it - this form is perhaps somewhat simpli­fied, but I can easily remember it. Even while alive the human body has little value; with the fat that it contains one could make, at the most, a few pieces of soap; with its iron, a little key; the rest is in proportion. Reduced to its principal elements the whole, well paid for, is not worth more than ninety-six cents.

Fortunately there is a soul! Ponder over this thought, the price of the soul.

Without doubt I must not ridicule my brother the body too much. I must give it the place it deserves, but even after having become a religious; after having renounced the comforts of the body. . . do I not give the body more than its due?

"In this month of the dead, give me light, O my God, to esteem this envelope of flesh which binds my soul at its right value. Grant that I may never come to any important decision in the future, without having first asked myself, according to the counsel of St. Ignatius, what I would wish to have done, at the hour of my death."

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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)