My vacation time is quickly coming to an end and I am anxious too get back to the parish and begin working once more as we prepare for the fall season in the parish with the beginning of our school year, the new faith formation sessions and just the rhythm of going back to the “norm.”
This weekend we are pre-celebrating the 60th birthdays of my brother and his wife (their real birthdays are in September) as both sides of the family gather to recognize this joyous time. It’s odd to think it was just a few years ago when we were passing around a silly “40th birthday” hat from sister to brother and down the line or the beginning of the 50th celebrations where our youngest brother made for our eldest sister the “holy cow, Mauna is 50” t-shirt translated into German with the many trips and celebrations that followed as many of us followed in this decade and so now we have the second of the siblings entering the 60’s. (and I am not far behind) Time marches on….
“Do this in remembrance of me.” As Catholics we hear this short phrase each Mass at the end of the consecration prayer and it becomes engrained into our very soul. It is a remembrance of thanksgiving of the gratitude and graciousness of God’s love for us through our memory and participation in the life God gifted to us and shares with us in joy. This has been one of the things I have been pondering during my vacation. In many conversations with family, friends and in the celebration of the Mass the “remembrance of me” has been stronger and stronger. It is not just the good, joyous and celebratory moments that have been remembered but also the struggles, the hurts and the tragedies which make the fullness of life true and honest. These have been the remembrances of grace and filial love.
In many ways, our life, our life of faith, our life of family circle around the ‘remembrance of me’ as we go about the living of life. As I sat with my mom and her friends at the senior citizen lunch the other day they shared many stories bringing laughter to the table and discussing and arguing about the facts, the relationships and the shared histories of friends and family many of them gone for many years and yet the memories of love continue to animate them in the hearts of those who lived with them in community.
It is how we as Catholics are called to remember in the communion of saints, the ‘in remembrance of me’ is the invitation to hold on to the blessing of life where we believe God works in the joys and sorrows of life. It is an invitation into the generosity of God’s goodness where He surrounds us in his eternal creative love.
We are called to be active listeners of life, joyful participants life and gracious servants of life. While I have been on vacation I have been helping out Fr. Paul at the parishes he serves, celebrating Masses and being available. There has been three funerals during this time. Each of the families I have known since childhood but living outside the area for almost 40 years the ‘in remembrance of me’ was listening to the journey of the family and the person who died from those men and women I knew in their late thirties and forties and the journey of life they had shared until the moment when our creator God called them home. Being able to hear their stories was a reminder of our need as Church and as the family of families to focus on the shared story of Jesus Christ and how we are all called to live in remembrance of Him as we share the living memory of our love of one another.
We often forget in our hectic world and in the frantic pace of life to sit down and listen, to joyfully partake and to serve with graciousness those around us as we share to laughter and tears of life. In prayer let us thank God for His gift of life and live it abundantly.
God Bless
Fr. Mark