Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die

Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble’s mission is to revive the practice of memento mori, intentionally thinking about your own death as a means of appreciating the present.Credit...Tony Luong for The New York Times

Suffering and death are facts of life: “Everyone dies, their bodies rot, and every face becomes a skull.”

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Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die

CMDRExorcist said:

The Bible is filled with passages about reflecting on the coming of death... Psalm 90 is completely dedicated to the mortality of man and the inevitability of death. I'm not Catholic by any means, but the Sister makes some good points that its important for us to reflect daily on our limited time here as a way of remembering to cherish even precious moment we have.

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Thank you.


”She has such a gift for talking about really difficult things with joy,” said Christy Wilkens, a Catholic writer and mother of six outside Austin, Texas. “She’s so young and vibrant and joyful and is also reminding us all we’re going to die.” Ms. Wilkens credits memento mori with giving her the “spiritual tools” to grapple with her 9-year-old son’s serious health issues. “It has allowed me, not exactly to cope, but to surrender everything to God,” she said.

For Sister Aletheia, having spent the previous few years meditating on mortality helped prepare her for the fear and isolation of the past year. The pandemic has been traumatic, she said. But there have also been small moments of grace, like people from the community knocking on the door to donate food to the nuns in isolation. As she wrote in her devotional, “Remembering death keeps us awake, focused, and ready for whatever might happen — both the excruciatingly difficult and the breathtakingly beautiful.”

The Liturgist said:

What a splendid, holy nun, and monastic, an example to all of us, like St. Scholastica.

What religious order is her convent associated with?

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She entered the Daughters of St. Paul convent in 2010. I’m not sure who they are associated with.

The Liturgist said:

I read that, but isn’t that convent part of a larger order like the Benedictines? (Her habit looks Benedictine)

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I’m not sure. I’m looking it up now.

You are correct. They are Benedictine nuns.

The Liturgist said:

I read that, but isn’t that convent part of a larger order like the Benedictines? (Her habit looks Benedictine)

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“Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience … Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren’t fit to face death today, it’s very unlikely you will be tomorrow …” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1014)


When I first learned of the Latin phrase, “Memento Mori,” I had no idea what to think of it or what all of the craze was about on #CatholicTwitter. I could figure out from the words that it had something to do with remembering our death, but why was this simple phrase popping up daily on my news-feed with a little emoticon skull next to it? There are even hashtags for this current Twitter trend; #mementomori and #livemementomori. SisterTheresa Aletheia Noble, FSP, a Daughter of St. Paul, gives daily reflections on Twitter about the skull on her desk and how she remembers to keep her impending death in mind. But the questions remain; what is this skull on the desk thing, and why is it so popular among Catholics, especially millennials?

This ancient Christian tradition has everything to do with being a Catholic. It comes from the Medieval Church, and Sister Theresa Aletheia speaks of the history behind “Memento Mori” on her website Pursued by Truth. She even has available in her online store memento mori apparel, decade bracelets, and devotional prayers and journals. Sister was inspired to revive the ancient tradition by the founder of the Daughters of St. Paul, Blessed James Alberione, who also kept a skull on his desk as a reminder of his impending death. She encourages all of us to take part in this revival by remembering to keep in mind our death daily before our eyes, and even to place a skull on our desk.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1007 on the topic of our death teaches us:

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Memento Mori – ‘Remember Your Death’