A Memento Mori Tarot Spread for Allhallowtide

A saint sits with a book, a candle and a skull. It is an arresting combination: learning, light and the unavoidable fact that our time here is limited.

This Memento Mori Tarot Spread for Allhallowtide draws on that Christian imagery to explore how we are living now. Through five cards arranged in a cross, we consider what needs to change, what we are holding onto and how we might use the days entrusted to us more lovingly.

Memento mori means “remember that you must die”. Held within Christian hope, that remembrance invites us to examine our lives in the light of eternity. What deserves our attention? Is there something we have postponed? What might we finally be willing to surrender to God?

In Allhallowtide: Remembering Our Beloved Dead, I explored ways to honour those we love who have died. Here, the focus turns towards our own mortality and the life we still have to live.

Jump to the five-card Memento Mori Tarot Spread.

Why Are Saints Pictured with Skulls?

In Christian devotional art, the skull is a reminder of mortality. Placed beside a saint, it brings the passage of time into the space of prayer. A life of study, work, devotion or service will also be a life that ends.

Guido Reni’s Saint Jerome includes a skull associated with reflection on life’s transience. In Zurbarán’s Saint Francis in Meditation, Francis cradles a skull while wearing a patched habit that recalls his commitment to poverty.

Georges de La Tour’s The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame brings together Mary Magdalene, a skull, books and lamplight in a scene of contemplation. Saint Bruno also appears in this tradition: the Metropolitan Museum holds an etching titled Saint Bruno Meditating on a Skull, made after a work by Ribera.

These images give us something to sit with. The skull makes a familiar truth visible, allowing us to approach it through attention, feeling and prayer.

For this spread, I have paired each saint with a particular area of reflection. The artwork provides the inspiration; the five positions form my own contemplative framework.

Remembering Death and Examining Life

Mortality can bring neglected questions into focus. We may discover that we have given years to winning approval, maintaining a grievance or waiting until we feel entirely ready to begin something worthwhile.

We can also notice what we treasure: the person we want to spend time with, the work we hope to finish, the kindness we can offer today.

The prayer of Psalm 90:12 asks God to teach us to count our days and gain wisdom of heart. That is a useful intention for this reading. We bring our finite lives before God and ask for the wisdom to inhabit them well.

The cards offer symbols through which to explore these questions. Read them in conversation with your actual circumstances, Scripture and prayer, allowing time to consider what an image brings to mind.

Preparing for the Reading

Settle somewhere comfortable with your deck and a journal. You might light a candle or spend a moment looking at one of the paintings linked above.

Begin with a simple prayer:

Heavenly Father, help me look honestly at my life. Give me courage to face what needs to change, tenderness towards what is wounded and gratitude for the time you have given me. Let this reflection bear fruit in love. Amen.

Shuffle and draw five cards. Place them according to the graphic below.

The Five-Card Memento Mori Tarot Spread

1. Centre — Golgotha: What Needs to Die?

What needs to die in my life right now?

John 19:17 identifies Golgotha, the place of Christ’s crucifixion, as the Place of the Skull. It belongs at the centre of this cross-shaped spread, anchoring our reflection in Christ’s death and the hope of resurrection.

Consider a pattern, pretence or attachment that has begun to govern your life. Perhaps you are clinging to the need to be right, measuring your worth through productivity or continuing a commitment because you cannot bear to disappoint anyone.

Look closely at the card. What seems exhausted? What is being defended? Could something new emerge if you stopped feeding this pattern?

The invitation is to surrender something that obstructs love and truth. Bring the response into prayer, asking for the grace to take one concrete step.

Journal prompt: What am I afraid I will lose if I allow this to end?

2. Top — Saint Jerome: Intellectual Reflection

What do I need to understand or think through regarding my mortality?

Jerome’s association with scholarship, Scripture and the skull makes him a fitting companion for an examination of our assumptions about death.

Perhaps you live as though there will always be more time. Perhaps fear of death occupies so much mental space that it crowds out the present. You may have inherited beliefs about ageing, achievement or judgement that deserve closer examination.

Let the card help you identify a thought worth following carefully. This could lead to a conversation, some reading, a practical decision or a question to bring before God.

There is room here for uncertainty. Naming what you do not understand can be an honest beginning.

Journal prompt: If I accepted that my time is limited, what would I stop postponing?

3. Bottom — Saint Mary Magdalene: Emotional Release

What emotional attachment, such as guilt or shame, am I being invited to release?

The contemplative Magdalene of devotional art offers an image through which to approach sorrow, repentance and love. Her Gospel story also carries the hope of renewal: in John 20:11–18, the weeping Mary encounters the risen Christ and becomes a witness to his resurrection.

For this position, consider something you repeatedly carry back into the present: an old mistake, a humiliating memory or the conviction that you should have been able to prevent everything that went wrong.

Where there is real responsibility, identify what can be acknowledged or repaired. Where shame has become a verdict on your whole identity, bring that verdict into the light of God’s mercy.

Release may begin with admitting what still hurts. Grief has its own pace, and remembering someone with love can remain part of your life.

Journal prompt: What would receiving mercy change about the way I tell this story?

4. Left — Saint Francis of Assisi: Material Stewardship

What could I give away, use more generously or leave behind as a loving legacy?

Francis’s patched habit and contemplation of the skull bring possessions and mortality into the same frame. Everything we own will eventually pass into other hands.

Consider how you are caring for what is temporarily entrusted to you. A possession might be useful to someone else. A skill could be taught. Family photographs could be labelled, or a much-loved recipe written down while you still remember its unwritten instructions.

The card may also raise a question about consumption. What do you keep buying in the hope that it will make you feel secure, accomplished or complete?

Choose a response that fits your circumstances. Generosity can be as modest and particular as giving someone the book you know they would love.

Journal prompt: What would I like another person to receive because I was here?

5. Right — Saint Bruno: Mortification and Sanctification

What new habit would help me practise fleshly mortification on the path of sanctification?

The image of Bruno meditating on a skull invites us to consider the discipline of a life directed towards God. This final position turns reflection into a repeated practice.

Mortification involves putting disordered desires and habits to death as we grow in holiness. The Catechism’s discussion of Christian holiness, particularly paragraph 2015, places it within the spiritual struggle towards the peace and joy of the Beatitudes.

For this reading, choose a small discipline that trains your desires and makes you more available to love. You might put your phone away during a conversation, pause before joining in gossip, resist an unnecessary purchase or keep a few minutes of silence before reaching for entertainment.

Treat your body with care as you practise. The habit should support a more faithful life and be proportionate to your health, responsibilities and present capacity.

Journal prompt: What small, repeatable act of self-restraint would help me love God and my neighbour more freely?

Carrying the Reading into Daily Life

Look across the five cards. How do the thought, feeling, possession and habit relate to what appeared at the centre?

You might recognise a connection between fear of being forgotten and the things you keep buying. Or between unresolved shame and an exhausting need to prove your usefulness. Let any connection remain a question you can explore honestly.

Then choose one action for the coming week. Write the message, give the item away, make the apology or begin the small practice. Keep it specific enough that you will know whether you have done it.

You can close with this prayer:

Heavenly Father, teach me to number my days with wisdom. Receive what I need to surrender, heal what I carry and guide what I have to give. Shape my daily habits through your grace, so that the life entrusted to me becomes an offering of love. Keep me in the hope of your resurrection. Amen.

This Allhallowtide, the skull beside the saint offers a question to carry into the ordinary hours: with the time I have, how will I love?

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