Make it daily and short. Each night, pray the words the Church puts into Night Prayer — "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit" — and go to sleep as a rehearsal of dying. St Benedict's Rule numbers among the tools of good works the counsel to keep death daily before one's eyes; a crucifix where you will see it does the work of the old memento mori objects. Then do the practical things now, while you can: make a will; write down that you want a priest called, confession, the Anointing of the Sick and Viaticum; name who is to call; arrange a Catholic funeral and burial and tell your family what you have decided. Pray regularly for a happy death and for the grace of final perseverance. Go to confession as if it were the last, and receive the Anointing of the Sick when illness or age gives cause, without waiting for the final hours. Visit a cemetery, attend funerals, and pray for the dead by name — the Church devotes November in particular to this suffrage. Read a proven guide: the medieval Ars moriendi and St Alphonsus Liguori's Preparation for Death stand in this tradition. The remembrance is Christian only if it ends in hope: we recall death because we expect the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

Spe Salvi treats Christian hope in the face of death and judgement; the Church's rites for the dying — Penance, Anointing and Viaticum — are the sacramental form this preparation takes, and the Directory on Popular Piety treats the suffrages the faithful offer for the dead.

Other

The common ascetical tradition; monastic in origin

Daily remembrance; practical arrangements reviewed periodically

other