Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lords Supper, Cycle B
Sisters of St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill, PA
April 5, 2012
Memories: Forgetting and Remembering
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Losing Memories
A family learned the dreaded diagnosis: they mother was suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next few months, her memories – already slowly slipping away – would fade to black all together.
Her daughter-in-law reflects on the preciousness of memories that she and her husband, John, began to realize as his mother’s memory began to slip away.
“Life is about moments – the blessed, the tragic, the sidesplitting, the poignant. Our lives are framed by them, and each one of us has the assemblage of memories that could be edited together, set to music, and watched like a movie…memories comfort us. They make us who we are. Without a connection to who we were, we’d feel lost, which must be exactly how [my mother-in-law] feels.
We want her so badly to remember us, and often she does, but we know we won’t always be that lucky…
“John once told me, ‘I want to make memories with you.’ It was a funny thing for a guy to say, but I know what he meant. He wanted me in his life, and he wanted to remember all of it.
“Memories are a privilege – every day we get to choose whether we want to remember something…and when those moments are slipping away, it reminds you how much there is to lose.
Keeping Memories
“We started keeping a memory book, John and I. It’s a cloth book that we keep on our bedside table where we’ll record a note about a fun day we had or a silly moment.
Maybe it’s human not to write the sad stiff. But it’s our way of keeping a record. Now, even if one of us forgets, there will always be those voices, our voices, on the page speaking to us.”
Memories are very precious things. Those of us who have suffered with a loved one afflicted with any form of dementia know all too well how fragile our ability to remember.
Tonight’s Memories
Tonight is about reliving a memory: the memory of Jesus, the Christ, who begins this night, for our sakes, his great Passover from death to life.
At this table, in the cenacle of our own church, the memory of Jesus becomes a living reality.
The rabbi Jesus speaks to us again in the pages of the Gospel book, in the basin, pitcher and towel, in the Eucharistic bread and wine.
The Mandatum
Jesus who revealed the wonders of God in stories about mustard seeds, fishing nets and ungrateful children, on this last night of his life – as we know life – leaves his small band of disciples his most beautiful parable:
Ø As I have washed your feet like a slave, so you must wash the feet of each other and serve one another.
Ø As I have loved you without limit or condition, so you must love one another without limit or condition.
Ø As I am about to suffer and die for you, so you must suffer and, if necessary, die for one another.
Tonight’s parable is so simple, but its lesson is so central to what being a real disciple of Christ is all about.
When inspired by the love of Christ, the smallest act of service done for another takes on extraordinary dimensions.
Conclusion
Whenever we imitate Jesus’ compassion and humility in putting aside our robes, bending down and “washing the feet” of another, the memory of Jesus’ compassion lives again.
Whenever we gather at this table to break and bless the bread and cup and share it, we experience again the selfless compassion of Jesus.
This night then challenges us to make the memory of Jesus’ compassionate healing and humble love for all people live again in our taking on the mandatum of being foot-washers to one another, of becoming the community of the Eucharist Christ has envisioned us to become.
Two truths we don’t forget because they are kept alive within this community of faith.
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