Emily M. DeArdo

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Coming January 2020-- Living Memento Mori: My Journey Through The Stations of the Cross

Exciting news!

My book has officially been “launched” At Ave Maria Press, which means we have a title and a publication month!


Drumroll……….




I love this title, but I know that you might be going, Memento huh?

Let me ‘splain.

Memento Mori is Latin for, "Remember that you will die" or, "remember death." Like a "memento" is something we have that reminds us of a person, place, or event, so memento mori is an item that is used to remind you that you will die, like a skull on your desk.

We do, as Christians, need to remember that we will die, that this world isn't all there is. A lot of us are in denial about this. 

So, that's what the first part of the title means--living with the knowledge that you are going to die. I've done that for an awful lot of my life, and that's a big part of the book.

The book examines this through the lens of the stations of the cross. So, each chapter is based around one of the 14 (well, 15, if you count the resurrection, which we are) stations--talking about Jesus' suffering, about our suffering, about memento mori, and using Pope St. John Paul II's letter On the Meaning of Human Suffering. 

It sounds like a lot, and it is, but it's a great "lot." I am trying to make it informative, hopeful, joyful (to an extent that the cross is joyful!--think "felix culpa"--O Happy Fault!), and with lots of C.S. Lewis references. 

So that’s what the title means!

January 2020 is the month before Lent starts—we get a February start next year, so may I suggest this will be FABULOUS Lenten reading?