Wisdom from Nicolas Diat

Entering a monastery is the first step toward death. Every day, Dom David reflects on his last hour: ‘When I am face to face with the Grim Reaper, I might not have the courage to look at him. But I do not see him as a threat. Death is a passage toward Christ. I hope that the son of God will come to take me by the hand. There is a Hindu allegory about the last moments that I particularly like. It distinguishes young monkeys from kittens. The latter wait without doing anything for their mother to take them in her mouth, while the little monkeys cling to their mother in order to go from branch to branch . . . At the hour of death, the monk would like to be a kitten carried in the mouth of Christ.’

—Nicolas Diat from A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life