Friends,
this weekend we celebrate Memorial Day here in the United States. Memorial Day is the day on which we remember
the men and women who died while serving this country in the armed forces. We take a day to remember them and to honor
them because their deaths while serving this country demonstrate a particular
level of self-sacrifice that not every member of this country is called to (or
capable) of giving. To make an analogy
to our Christian faith, those who died while serving in the armed forces are
like this country’s “martyrs”: those who gave witness to their faith in this
country and to the ideals for which it stands to the point of giving their
lives.
As
members of this country, it is important that we celebrate days like this. This type of remembering is important because
it reminds us of who we are and for what we stand. It helps us to remain united as a people and
to rededicate ourselves to our common purpose: which is to maintain a country
in which all men and women can come and pursue the ideals of a good life in freedom
and peace.
As
Christians, the importance of remembering should be very familiar to us. Remembering, in fact, is the very foundation
of our worship! Here, in the Eucharist,
the Word of God is proclaimed to us so as to remind us of how God worked
throughout history to create us and then to save us when we turned against
him. Then, we re-present the sacrifice
of Jesus here on this altar so as to remind us, and make present anew, that
sacrifice which saved us from sin and restored us to communion with God. Weekly—daily, in fact—the Eucharist is
celebrated because remembering what God has done to save us—and giving him
thanks for it—is important, both as our worship of God and of remembering who
we are as a people united to him.
On
this day, in particular, the Church calls us to remember who God is in himself:
a communion of Persons so perfectly united to each other that no distinction in
the substance can be made. God, who has
revealed himself as the Most Holy Trinity, shows us that the ideal for which we
were made is to be one with this communion of Persons, and to anticipate it by
forming a communion of persons with our brothers and sisters here on
earth. This, it is surely true, is what
it means to have been made in “the image and likeness of God”.
As
good as it is to remember and to honor God for who he is, it is also necessary
to remember and to honor God for what he has done for us. God has worked great miracles and manifested
himself in powerful ways over the centuries—most powerfully in his incarnation
in Jesus Christ—in order to demonstrate to us that he does not desire to be
separate from us, but rather close to us (and us to him!). When we remember who God is and what he has
done for us, we remember and strengthen our unity as Christians: for we
remember that we are all sons and daughters of the one true God and, therefore,
brothers and sisters of one another.
This
type of remembrance is quite ancient. In
our first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear Moses admonishing the
people to think about how astonishing it is that the God of the universe would
be so close to them, his chosen people.
In doing so, he admonishes them to remember all that God had done for
them: leading them out of slavery in Egypt by working powerful miracles and
sustaining them through their forty years in the desert so that they might now
enter into the land that he had promised to give them as a perpetual inheritance. The purpose of this remembering, Moses said,
is to “fix in their hearts that the Lord is God in the heavens above and the
earth below, and that there is no other.”
In other words, they remember so that they never forget who they are
(the chosen people of God) and the ideals for which they were created (to worship
God, the Lord, alone).
Friends,
since the beginning of Advent (yes, I said “Advent” and I meant to say it), we
have been remembering the mighty works that God has done for us to save us and
restore us to his friendship. Most
powerfully, the incarnation of God the Son, who, taking on our human nature,
lived as one of us, showed himself to be the Messiah by his teaching, way of
life, and miracles. Then, taking all of
our sins onto himself, he offered his life on the cross as expiation for our
sins and, having died, he rose to life again to conquer death once and for all
so that any of us who are united to him through baptism might rise to life with
him on the last day. Celebrating, as we
have been, our new life in Christ, we remember that we are then sent forth with
a mission: to make disciples of all people, uniting them to Christ in the same
baptism so that all God’s children might live in Christ for all eternity.
In
short, we remember all of these things to remind us of who we are and to heal,
refresh, and renew our strength to continue the mission that has been given us:
to proclaim the sovereignty of Christ and to accompany our brothers and sisters
in their journey to be united to the Most Holy Trinity through him.
You
know, one of the best ways that we remember is through telling stories. When we tell the stories of how one person or
another has impacted our lives we not only remember the facts of the events,
but we also re-experience the emotions of those events: how we felt when that
person impacted our life. If those
experiences were positive, then our remembrance strengthens us. If they were negative, our remembrance
becomes an opportunity to heal. In
either case, when we tell the stories, the memories become powerfully alive
once again and have the power to move us.
Today
as we honor the Most Holy Trinity, let us take time to share with one another
the ways that God has worked in our lives over these past months. In our remembrance, perhaps we will find
inspiration to accept once again this great commission from Jesus and to go out
into our communities to proclaim Christ to them: first by being Christ to them
in loving service, then by speaking to them of Christ when their hearts are
ready to receive him.
The
Holy Spirit, whose coming among us we celebrated last week, dwells powerfully
within us. With confidence in his power
working in us, let us take up this good work.
And in all things, let us give thanks, as we do here today, that the
Almighty has revealed himself to us, has made us his sons and daughters, and has
made possible for us to live forever in perfect joy with him, who is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever, Amen.
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Rochester, IN – May 26th,
2024
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