During my travels earlier in the month, we had an
interesting and rather unexpected church visit in the Portuguese city of Evora.
We encountered the transience of life up close and personal. “The Chapel of the Bones was built in the 17th century, with the intention of provoking by the image
the reflection on the transience of human life. Both the walls and the
pillars are covered with a few thousand bones and skulls from the burial spaces
connected to the convent.” By the 16th century, there were as many as 43
cemeteries in and around Évora that were taking up valuable land. Not
wanting to condemn the souls of the people buried there, the monks decided to
build the Chapel and relocate the bones. 5000 corpses were moved. The inscription over the door reads: “Nós
ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos,” or: “We bones, are here, waiting for yours.”
It was both beautiful and somehow terrible to behold so many
bones artfully decorating every vertical surface. There was a pillar of sacrums, stacks of femurs,
masses of skulls and arches of tibias.
The monks would meditate here on the ephemeral-ness of the body and life
finding inspiration to commit fully to their religious practices. I wished there was somewhere to sit and
contemplate because it certainly did stimulate this awareness in me. It also
brought home the unity of all bodies and all peoples regardless of color,
creed, religion or ethnicity – all the things that seem to divide us and make
us feel better than, less than, and certainly different from one another. Tantric
philosophy teaches that we are all made of the One energy and nowhere was this
more apparent to me than in the Chapel of Bones. The Bone Chapel brings perspective, one of the 8 Pillars of Joy.
Here is a poem by Father Antonio da Ascencao, that hangs
from one of the pillars:
Where are you going in such a
hurry traveler?
Pause… do not advance your
travel;
You have no greater concern
Than this one: that on which you
focus your sight.
Recall how many have passed from
this world,
Reflect on your similar end,
There is good reason to reflect
If only all did the same.
Ponder, you so influenced by
fate,
Among all the many concerns of
the world,
So little do you reflect on
death;
If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop… for the sake of your journey,
The more you pause, the further on your
journey you will be.
