PODCAST - Press sideways triangle below to
listen
Holy Thursday: Mass of the
Lord's Supper, Cycle B
St. Francis DeSales Church
April 2, 2015
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 begins this
night, for our sakes, his great Passover from death to life.
At
this table, in the cenacle of our very own church, 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, birds 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 Christ 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 (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 break and bless the bread and
cup and share it, and 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 remain – (1) humbly serving and (2) becoming Jesus’ body – and because we
don’t forget, because we remember they come alive within this community of St.
Francis De Sales.
