From the Director - Sharing our personal memories of Jesus
18.08.2009
For me the most moving day in Holy Week is Holy Saturday, the day preceding the wonderful Vigil ceremonies. It is a long day of waiting. We don't have the comfort of marvellous ceremonies. We can just sit there with our doubts, hopes and memories of Jesus. In that way we are very much like the apostles. They were grieving. Their friend, the one they had placed such hopes in, was dead. They were not expecting him to rise. Instead they probably sat around, much as we do when we are grieving for a friend, and shared memories. One may have said, "He was so gentle and compassionate. I remember the day he raised the widow's son at Nain." Another was reminded of his curing the woman with a haemorrhage. Someone else remembered how he wept over Jerusalem. Others thought of him as a brilliant preacher and were mindful of the time he spoke on the mount and others of how he was "too sharp" for the scribes and the Pharisees. And as they shared their memories a wonderful thing happened, their hearts started to burn within them and they realised that he and his mission were not dead. A liturgist once explained to me that this is probably how the Eucharist began. The first Eucharists were meals at which Jesus' grieving friends shared their memories of him and slowly they remembered more and gradually they built up one another's faith. Then they remembered that Jesus had asked them to do this in memory of him. Little by little the traditions that were eventually to become the Gospels grew. In recent years I have learnt the importance of my favourite memories of Jesus. They are my "Gospel" and while they may not be as important as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the Gospel according to Noel is critical in my spiritual life. I have also learnt how important it is that we share these memories with one another and build up one another's hope and faith. So my prayer for all of us this Easter is that we will have an opportunity in our grief to remember Jesus, to call to mind those images which nourish and sustain us and make our hearts burn within. I also hope we will have an opportunity to share these images with our friends so that we can build up one another's faith and we will experience the power of Jesus' rising. Fr Noel Connolly
director@columban.org.au
