HOMILY for March 24, 2016: Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord's Supper

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Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Cycles ABC

Triduum Retreat at Retreat and Conference Center at Bon Secours

March 24, 2016

Memories: Forgetting and Remembering

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Losing Memories

A family learned the dreaded diagnosis: their 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

John and his wife began keeping a memory book. It was a cloth-covered book that they kept on our bedside table where they’d record a note about a day of fun they’d had or a silly moment they shared.

Perhaps it’s human that they didn’t write about the sad things, but it was their way of keeping a record. Whenever, one of them forgets, there will always be those voices, their voices, on the page speaking to them.

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 is.

Tonight’s Memories

Tonight is about reliving a memory: the memory of Jesus, the Christ, who, for our sakes, begins this night, his great Passover from death to life.

At this table, in the cenacle of our very own chapel, the memory of Jesus is quickened and 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, sparrows and lilies, 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 Jesus is all about.

When inspired by the love of Jesus for me, then 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, that is, putting aside our titles, wealth, education, whenever we’re willing to bend down and “wash the feet” of another in all humility, then the memory of Jesus’ compassion lives again.

And so we gather at this table on Holy Thursday to bless and break bread as he did, to bless and share the sacred cup as he did, and so 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, which means taking on the charge of being foot-washers to one another, of becoming the community of the Eucharist Jesus envisioned us to become.

Two truths remain – (1) humbly serving and (2) becoming Jesus’ body – and because we don’t forget, because we remember, they come alive within this community here tonight.