REMEMBERING  MOMENTS 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Remembering Moments.”

MEMORY

One of the greatest gifts we have is memory.

A hundred times a day we say, “I remember!”

A thousand times a day our memory is triggered.

Everything reminds us of something.

Going by Rita’s Ice Cream triggers our taste buds - and a summer moment some 11 summers ago.

Words trigger words - moments trigger moments….

And so when we hit 75 we say to ourselves at least 5 times a day, “I’m losing it.”  or “I forget why I came into this room.” Or in the middle of a remembering moment we scratch the side of our forehead - which has our brain inside - and we say to a person we’re telling something, “Where was I going with this?”

And the other person who wasn’t listening thinks inside their brain, “Uh oh! I wasn’t listening. I was listening to my own stuff - that your stuff triggered.”

The title of my homily is, “Remembering Moments.”

FASCINATING

Isn’t it fascinating what we remember?

I have a theory that we can’t plan or control what we are going to remember. We remember what we remember. We forget what we forget - but often it's in there - somewhere in the back of a closet in the basement of our mind.

Why do I remember this poem by William Allingham and I forget so many others?

Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years-
To remember with tears! 

As soon as I thought of this theme of remembering along came in my mind and memory that poem I memorized years and years ago. It asks the very point I'm looking at in this homily about “Remembering Moments”.

We have lots of ducks floating on the duck pond of our memory.

Today I’m asking: line up your ducks in a row.

What are your earliest memories? What was your best meal? What was the first movie you remember seeing?  What books, songs, movies - have moved you and why?

Do you have any hurts you can’t unhurt?

Have you ever done anything really dumb - and you can’t forgive yourself for it?

What is your happiest childhood memory - or lifetime memory?

Talk to yourself. Talk to each other. 

Quack! Quack!  -  Quack! Quack!

THE BIBLE

The Bible is a big book of memories.

And like all memories most were first spoken.

And spoken memories change and get better hopefully as they go around the room.

Brian Williams lost his job because he changed his memories. [1]

Surprise. We all do.

Sometimes memories are written down - as in memoirs or autobiographies.

Then if our brothers and sisters read our stories they say, "Did we grow up with the same parents in the same house?"

Today’s first reading from Wisdom 2: 12, 17-20 was put in here because of today’s gospel Mark  9:30-37- when Jesus tells his disciples about what’s going to happen down the line.

As you know we’re following along each Sunday this year with a gospel reading from Mark. We’re up to Chapter 9 and we’ll make it to Advent - when we begin again the cycle of God memories and Jesus memories for us Christians.

Today’s second reading - it’s from a Letter from James to a Christian community that sometimes we’re being jealous, selfish and out of order. [Cf. James 3:16 to 4:3]

It also tells us where wars come from - in case we forget - and our memory needs to be probed and pushed. Wars start at the local level - deeper - they start in our own passions to possess - to control - to want - and we don’t know how to express our ideas and views - our truth - or supposed truth - to each other - and another refuses to accept us or be with us. Magnify that and we have family fights. Magnify that big time and we have wars.

When Pope Francis says the same thing that the Letter of James told us today in Congress and in the United Nations in the next week or so - all kinds of stuff will be triggered - hopefully for the better.

Hopefully conversations and conversions for love and service to the last and least important amongst us will happen - starting in our memories.

I’m wondering - really wondering what kinds of memories Pope Francis will trigger in his visit to Cuba and to the United States.

He’ll be in New York City. Will he trigger what is written on the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor - which is quite close to Ellis Island - that we are a nation of immigrants - legal and illegal - and not to forget our national memory? 

For the sake of transparency and memory, my parents came as young people - and my dad had 5 dollars in his pocket and a clean set of underwear and he dropped the old in the Boston Harbor before he got off the boat.

So I'm wondering what memories the pope will trigger about the Catholic message about caring for the poor and the immigrant.

I’m also wondering especially about what memories Catholic drop outs will remember.

I wonder about dropouts from various religious traditions who are at every wedding and every funeral I’m at. I say, “The Lord be with you.” and there is no answer - and when I hear that muffled silence - I wonder, “Where have you been since the last time you went to church or synagogue or mosque? I wonder what does a church experience - a wedding or a funeral or a baptism - trigger in your memory?

Life is found in the memory.

Today’s gospel from Mark - finally put together around the year 60 - contains a memory when Jesus asked his disciples what were they arguing about?  “They remained silent.”

Mark helps the memory from that experience. They were arguing about who was the greatest?”

It was a memory from when Jesus was moving around before he gets to Jerusalem and is arrested, tortured and killed on the cross.

This big cross is up here in memory of Jesus.

Back up to that day when they were arguing about being the greatest - Jesus says, “If anyone wasn’t to be first, be last and be the servant of everyone else.”  That’s a big Jesus theme.

Then as the community memory put it, Jesus spots a child, places the kid right in the middle and says, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

Pope Francis has read and heard this stuff - and like every pope hopefully he’ll pick up dozens and dozens of children this coming week and the kids family will remember that moment for the rest of their lives.

So too politicians …. They pick up babies....

I’d add, “Pick up your children and grandkids - and embed that hug in their memory for the rest of their lives.”

I’ve heard enough adults tell me that their dad never hugged them.

This week be a pope - hug your 37 year old son or daughter or call them up in Reading Pennsylvania or Albuquerque, New Mexico and tell them you love them.

Memories - make them good ones.

IT SEEMS

It seems bad memories burn deeper.

Every priest knows that one negative comment by someone going out of church is the one remembered - more than the 25 “Have a great week” or “Good homily, Father.”

Father Blas was here this weekend for a wedding. As soon as I saw him a memory came back. Father Blas told us that someone said as he started from the back of church - seeing him and hearing him announced - a guy said rather loud, “Oh no!”

I tell that memory because we all give those, “Oh no” votes to various people in life - and it hurts them for life - and we have had the same thing happen to us.

We might not say it with words, but we say it with our face or look.

I say this because we all have the gift of memory.

Take your memories. Sit them like sitting a little child  in your midst today - and reflect upon them.

CONCLUSION

For homework this week, do some memory work.

Think of your mom and dad, family and friends, isolate memories of each and forgive the hurts - they remain like graffiti on our memory - but still forgive - and remember the good and say thank you to the living and the dead.

And remember we’re at this Mass doing all this in memory of Jesus.

NOTES:

[1] Check out an article by James McWilliams, " The Examined Lie - A Meditation n Memory"  or as it's entitled on the front cover of the magazine, "The Storyteller - Brian Willaims and the pathways of memory". It's in The American Scholar, Summer 2015, pp. 18-30