I REMEMBER ____
FILL IN THE BLANK
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 17th Sunday in
Ordinary Time [B] is, “I Remember ______ Fill In The Blank.”
One of life’s key opening and recurring comments is, “I
Remember….”
And then we tell a story, a remembrance….
When we get older - our long term memory seems at times
to take over - and sometimes fills the room with a great story or remembrance -
and sometimes if we repeat ourselves enough - sometimes it empties the room.
When we get older - sometimes our key sentence, “I
remember…” changes to, “I can’t remember…” or “I’m trying to remember…” or,
“I’m losing my memory…” or “I forgot….”
So too the sadness in some - when losing family or faith
- and the loss of the sacred - and sadness invades or pervades the soul or the
room.
VACATIONS
It’s summer and sometimes people go back home and walk
the streets of the place where they grew up - and up come memories - like grass
through the cracks on the sidewalk.
I don’t have children - but I picture that it would be a
wonderful memory for a kid to have a dad or a mom or grandparent take them
through the places they were.
So too soldiers and sailors going back to Vietnam or
Korea or San Antonio or San Diego.
So too going back to the schools and playgrounds and the
places we used to go to. And the little children laughed and smiled seeing dad
sliding down the slide once again - or grandma on the swing of her childhood.
And if you haven’t and if you can, if you see people on
the front steps of your childhood home -
go up to them and tell them you used to live here and could you get a guided
tour - if possible.
So too the beauty of museums and photo albums. Let your
feet or your fingers do the walking - and let your mouth do the talking - if
you have an audience.
When I see people standing outside this church and they
look like visitors, I like to suggest, “Welcome. The church is open. Check it
out. And at times someone says, “I was married here,” or “I went to school
here.”
A POEM BY
CONRAD AIKEN (1889-1973)
Talking about memory and remembrance, I spotted a poem by
Conrad Aiken - an American poet - of Savannah, Georgia and New England and
elsewhere - and a very complex life. He
was big on remembrance and symbolism. I spotted in reading up about him, that
he has an autobiography along with his many poems and other writings. I might check
that autobiography out.
Listen to this poem by Conrad Aiken. It will lead me to today’s gospel about Jesus and Bread.
The poem is entitled, “Bread and Music.”
BREAD AND MUSIC
By Conrad Aiken
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, belovèd,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,―
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.
Anyone who has lost a loved one - as you move among their stuff gets this poem big time - first time.
The stuff of life is filled with flashbacks - and history
- her and his story.
The feel of others is on so many things in a house -
especially in the living room. They don’t have to have the words “In memory of”
like the stained glass windows here in church. We just have to talk to each
other - in the living rooms of our lives.
THE MASS
I have met with various people who have left the church
and want to come back. Often - if they are old enough - they discover the Mass has
changed - but they were not here to witness and change with the changes.
I don’t listen enough or too well - but I make an effort
to listen to what they saw and missed - or didn’t like or what they wondered
about as they left.
The bread is the same. The wine is the same. The key
words are the same: “This is my body. This is my blood. Do this in memory of
me.”
Jesus spoke in Aramaic.
What he said went into Greek - and spread through the Mediterranean Basin - and then into Latin and into the languages of our world.
I like to take people into the sacristy here at St. Mary’s
and show them the safe in there where there is the gold and silver cups and
plates.
We were brought up not to touch them. That has changed. I
ask them to take the chalice and take the gold plate - and feel the Mass in
them - the thousands of Masses and more in them.
Sometimes they have engravings in them: “In memory of
Luigi and Mary Mellaci.”
I show them the unleavened bread. It’s unleavened like
the Passover Bread - which Israel
gobbled down before their run, their exit, their exodus from slavery to freedom
- wanting the promised land. Don’t we all?
I tell them the joke a deacon Dave Page at Millersville
told Father Harrison, “At Mass we believe that the bread becomes the Body of
Christ, but the greater miracle is to believe this is bread.” There was a post Second Vatican Council
statement to try to make the Bread of the Mass to look and taste a lot more
like bread.
To feed 500 or 5000 as in today’s gospel, the Church got
practical and came up with the round bread, hosts, we use in Catholic Churches
in the West. The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches use little cubes of
leavened bread - and have longer Masses.
In the poem I read we heard about a sad man at a table
where he broke bread with his beloved - bread that was more than bread -
because of his love for her - and her hands touched a glass where they shared
perhaps wine. Memories and moments at the family table.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
To me Conrad Aikens’ poem obviously triggers Eucharist, Memories, Moments from way back. To
me I have met various people who want to come back to the Eucharist - because
they need the bread and the wine and the table and the words of Christ. Down
deep they don’t miss nostalgia. They miss Christ - the bread of life. They miss the Word of God.
As you know scriptures mean writings - script. As you know the 4 gospels didn’t get
formalized till after 60 and up till 100 at least for the gospel of John.
Before that the followers of Christ met and shared bread and wine and stories
of Jesus and someone finally said, “We’re getting old. Our minds are going. We
better write down these stories and sayings that Jesus told us. We better write
down his story for the next generation - and by the way, here’s a letter that
we just received from Paul that is going around. And notice how this story
about Jesus feeding 5000 people is like this story in the Book of Kings when
Elisha the prophet fed the people with 20 barley loaves - as we heard in
today’s first reading.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “I Remember ____ Fill In The
Blank.”
We’re here at Mass this Sunday to “Do this in memory of
me” - Christ.
We come here because we are like this crowd in today’s
gospel. We are hungry. We are thirsty for this table and any table that can
bring us together.
Let me fill in that blank after that I remember in my
title this way.
“I remember Sundays in my childhood when we went to
Sunday Mass and came home and my dad made us grey cooked cereal that was
sometimes lumpy and demanded lots of sugar and then we all went to Bliss park -
us 4 kids and him - and mom got a break from us - and we came home had a Sunday
dinner together - all around the table
and then we went up to the drugstore on 4th avenue and got a gallon
of Breyer’s Ice Cream - and all was good and all was wonderful….
