 In one of the editions of his work, it was, I think, from 1538 from memory, there are included these short works at the end. I was really struck by them. I thought, gee, these are such powerful works, particularly for me as a Benedictine. One of the things which St. Benedict suggests to us is that we should keep death daily before our eyes. This was very much a characteristic of the spirituality of people in the late medieval period when Kemper's was writing. This really is something which modern readers don't find too much of. In our modern world, we tend to not to want to talk about death. We know it's there, but we'd prefer just to keep it kind of hidden away and refer to it as little as possible, whereas he brings it out there right in the open. I think this meditation of death in itself brings us close to wisdom, because in the end, it's a reality which we're all going to have to face. In our little studio here to my left, we have a little friend, a skull, a human skull. Now, it's a fake plastic skull. I'm glad it is, actually. That used to be on my desk down the hall in my office. When I started running this company a number of years ago, I learned a lot of Catholic artwork of St. Jerome working on his writings. He always had this skull on his desk, or he's holding a skull talking to it. Momentum or remember that you will die. And so I googled, searched, how do I get a human skull? A fake one. I didn't think getting a real human skull would be the most prudent thing to do in my office, but this little plastic $40 human skull does stare at me and remind me that I'll look like him one day. And so that was a common practice, I think, amongst the great saints, as they really did things to remind themselves that the end was near. And I think it puts everything in so much perspective. Often we can get ourselves enmeshed in things which seem to matter so much. But when we put it in the context of the fact that we're not going to be here forever, we think, well, does it really matter so much? What are the ultimate things? What really matters in the context of the inevitability of death and everything that lies beyond it? The opening paragraph to this work, Father, is great. My friend, so he's talking to us, it is most useful for you to call to mind frequently and assiduously the reality of your own death. This indeed is the one universal reality of our human condition. And so it's like, we have that saying here, there's two certain things in life, death and taxes. So it's the one universal reality. And then he says something interesting. He says, some are rich, while others are poor, some are masters, while others are servants, some learned, while others are simple, and some are blessed by happiness and good fortune, while others are struck down by misfortune and calamity, yet all face death with equal certainty. And though death itself is a certainty, its time and manner of arrival are profoundly uncertain. Oh my God, I mean, it's stuff that we know, but you translate it beautifully. And I had mentioned to you before my favorite book that we publish, Humility of Heart. And in that opening paragraph of that work, he explains, hey, you know, maybe you don't have to give all your money to the poor, maybe you don't have to be a virgin to get holy, maybe you don't have to suffer, but you have to be humble. Like, it's the universal thing, you have to be humble. Well, here, I kind of felt like this opening paragraph was like that, you know, listing all these different states in life, all these different cert cert situations, but the one certainty is death. And I just think it was a powerful opening paragraph. Yeah, very much so. And you know, I think the more we keep the reality of death in mind, the less likely we are to fall into any sin of any kind, because you think about it, pride, envy, lust, wrath, and all of these things, you know, think about death and they go away. They lose their power, don't they? They do. Yeah. He says here on page five, consider next your own self and your dying moments, and reflect upon the stains on your own conscience, your atoned, your unatoned sins and your unamended vices. These, I love this line, these will all flood into your heart as a bitter torrent at that fateful time, like a river of regret or a stream of sorrow. I mean, this is some strong language. It is, it is. And you think about, you think about yourself lying on your deathbed with all of these things, you know, pouring in, he says, how much you will then long for, listen to this, how much you will then long for another year of life and health or even another day or another hour in which to atone and amend yourself. I mean, you know, you're, you're there, you're being flooded with, you know, like we talk about how life flashes before your eyes, right? People talk about that. Well, here he's kind of saying these, your own regrets, you know, time wasted, things like that are going to be flooding through. And how much you would give, you would give all of your riches for just another day to amend your life. That's such a powerful notion. Yeah. Yeah. And we're called by this knot to wait till it's too late. And this might seem like a bit of a cliche, but we should live as if this very day, this very minute could be our last, you know, and think, well, if I knew that this was going to be my last day, what would I do? And, and to do it, because, you know, it is a reality sooner or later, this day could be our last, it could be this very night that we're called away. And to think, would I, what decision would I make if I knew that I'm not going to get a second chance? Yeah. And in this, when we think about every single thing we do, we're sure to make the decision, which is going to, to keep us on that path, which will lead to eternal happiness. You know, often we do things thinking, oh, it doesn't matter so much because, you know, I'm going to have extra time. I can always correct things. I can always, you know, make up for it at some future point in time that I'm always going to have a second chance. But we're not always going to have a second chance that, you know, that this might be our very last chance. It might be, you know, we might already be at the stage of the last chance. And are we making the best of it? Are we doing the right thing? A little further in the book, he mentioned something that I find particularly interesting. I'm going to ask you kind of a tough question on this. He says, and at the point of death, a multitude of demons will appear before you ready to seize upon each departed soul. So in our modern world, we have a notion of like, oh, you die and you feel at peace and you see the light and you go towards the light. We have a very kind of positive view of things. And people talk a lot about that. But the church fathers, and I've read a number of them on this, particularly Gregory the Great, your fellow Benedictine. And he talks about how death is actually terrifying. And it's terrifying for a couple reasons. One, you got these demons who are fighting over you at the last moment. And then also, and this is this was interesting to me, Father, and I'd love our listeners to hear it and just see what you have to say about it. It's going to be that when we, as soon as we die, as soon as the soul departs the body, we are now a very incomplete person, right? And it's the first time we're going to experience life without our senses, our physical senses. We're going to, I mean, imagine not being able to see anything or hear anything instantly. Like if we just went deaf and blind like right now, boom, we'd be terrified. We would. What if we just could, what if we lost our sense of feeling and you couldn't feel the chair you're sitting in there, you couldn't, you know, all of these senses vanish instantly. And so the soul is going to have a sense of real terror initially. So which, by the way, in my mind, it tells me the more you detach from your body now through mortification, more detachment, the better suited you're going to be to be without your body right upon your death. And so, you know, you'll get your bearings quicker. So, I mean, so just talk a little bit about right at the moment of death, what are the demons doing? Why did a campus say that multitude of demons are going to be surrounding you? Yeah. And, you know, I think this is a tremendous antidote to the way we often like to imagine death as if it's going to be just, you know, really tremendous, peaceful thing that we're, you know, but no, I mean, if you think about the times in life, and all of us have been, well, most of us have been close to death at one point or another. We've been, you know, either suffering from real physical danger, from some illness, from some real physical pain. And we realize that this is not. This is actually a pretty fearful thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, death in itself is something which is quite, apart from being unknown, we're quite right to be afraid of dying. And to think about, well, the not only don't we know where we're going, but our senses, everything which we've counted on is going to be taken away from us. Yeah. It's going to be confused as well. Yeah, exactly. Like you just imagine you just can't see or hear anything instantly. You know, that would be confusing. Yeah. Yeah. And you think, well, you know, the closest we could probably imagine to this is if we were, if we were put into a very dark room, if our senses were all becoming very unreliable, we don't know what we're doing. We don't know, we basically don't know who we are. And on top of that, there are these dark, fearful, terrifying things which are trying to seize us and doing their very best to confuse us. Father, you know, sensory deprivation is a form of torture. It is. And that's what, you know, the bad guys do, you know, they'll do sensory deprivation. And you don't know if five minutes went by or an hour went by. I mean, like people get very confused and very concerned and the anxiety goes through the roof. People can't take it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's something that scare the hell out of us a little bit to that we think, okay, that's what might be, we might be looking at that at death. We will be looking at that at death. And ultimately, all fear emerges from our fear of death. The oldest fear is the fear of the unknown. And there's nothing which is more unknown than death and what it really means and what's going to happen to it. And if we knew that it went, that it meant that it was a full stop and that there was nothing, then we wouldn't be afraid. But we don't know. And this ultimate not knowing, I think, is the greatest possible fear there is.