The Reality of Death

The grave of Eliza Boulton, wife of Henry John Boulton, in the crypt of St. Michael's Cathedral.

St. Jerome used to visit the catacombs weekly to remind himself of the reality of death:

Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist’s words were fulfilled, “Let them go down quick into Hell”. Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, “Horror unique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent”.