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By Anthony Esolen, The Catholic Thing, Sept. 11, 2022

Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. Among his books are Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, and Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World, and most recently The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord. He is a professor and writer in residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts, in Warner, New Hampshire. Be sure to visit his new website, Word and Song.

When I was young and foolish, it pleased me to consider that in the new Catholic dispensation, the robes for the priest at a funeral Mass were white, symbolic of the Resurrection, and not black, as before. I remember those black robes, because sometimes when I was a boy and I showed up with my classmates at church before school started, the priest was saying a funeral Mass. The black was sobering, a bit frightening.

I’m older now, and a day hardly goes by when I do not think about death. The sun is sloping in the west. I will soon reach the time when certain jobs around the house are not for me anymore – like climbing up on the roof to repair the shingles, as I am going to do next week, though my wife Debra will not be entirely pleased to hear it. …

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