This is Memorial Day weekend, and at least in part, it is meant as a time for us to remember those who died fighting for our country along with the nearly 97,000 who have died from the coronavirus. With the stay at home directives, not many people are visiting others, but we can do so in other ways. Whether we visit a cemetery or take the time to reflect on past experiences, memories provide us with a means of being present with others, both living and dead.
Consider spending time this weekend looking through your family photo album. Give thanks for those who came before you: the family who raised you, who taught you, who instilled in you the values that guide your life today. Even the most faded photos in that album are also pictures of you.
If you don’t have that album, take out your school yearbook. Relive those moments with friends and classmates, the once young faces who continue to be your truest friends with whom you traveled together through first jobs, first loves, first break-ups, first children, and first grandchildren.
Or open the box of souvenirs filled with memories. Some of its contents are small insignificant objects that mean the world to you, but nothing to others. There is also the box in your heart of intangible treasures like the wisdom you learned from parents, wise teachers and mentors, the places you visited, the discoveries you have made, and the adventures you have experienced. Yes, memories provide us with a means of being present with loved ones in spirit.
What a small leap it is from the gospel we just read to now. Jesus, the Lord, is not literally here but as we just heard moments ago, he told the disciples, “I am with you always until the end of the age.” While he is no longer physically present in our midst, we can still feel his presence.
Perhaps you have heard of Victor Frankl. Seventy-five years ago, he was liberated from a Nazi concentration camp where he was imprisoned for several years. There, he developed the basis of his psychology, which he later shared in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. He noticed that most who survived the ordeal, who didn’t fall apart, had something to sustain them. He wrote, “The salvation of man is through love and in love. A man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss in the contemplation of his beloved.”
Frankl noticed his fellow prisoners needed some cause, some person, some love to keep them from falling apart. For them that spiritual presence was very real, strong, and life sustaining. This, for example, is how Christ is present to us in varying degrees. I am with you always, he assures us, and for those of us with faith, those words sustain us in this trying time when life is certainly far from normal.
Imagine the scene in our first reading. The disciples in a matter of weeks had gone from following Jesus to witnessing his betrayal and shameful death on the cross, experiencing his risen presence for forty days, and now his ascension. Had you done what I suggested last Sunday, which was to read the Acts of the Apostles, you know the rest of the story. They returned to the upper room and spent time in prayer with certain women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus.
They had no clue then what to do other than pray. Jesus promised them power when the Holy Spirit would come upon them. Little did they realize that indeed they would be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. This “in-between time” of uncertainty that the apostles were facing is something like what you and I know from our own experience. Months ago when phase one of this pandemic began, we wondered, “When will we get to phase two, much less phase four, when hopefully life will be get back to normal?” As time drags on, we could become discouraged and frightened.
Or we could follow the example of the apostles and make time for prayer, even if we cannot do so in the manner we once did. We can pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit.
Reading between the lines as I ponder the Acts of the Apostles, I find Luke inviting us to also savor its message of simplicity. The faith community shared what they had with one another. Many people are dealing with loss right now. The world we knew months ago has shrunk. The daily routine of going to work or school is gone. The inability to come and go as you wish compels some people to ponder the values of their lives and in turn see the wisdom of redefining their values and living more simply.
What really matters when what we once took for granted has been taken away? My health? My income? My car? My home? In this stripping away time, some of us are being forced to ponder, “What values do I really want to live by?”
This pandemic is providing us with a graceful moment to answer that question. As you consider that question, do so with hope, knowing fully well that the Spirit enables Jesus to be with you always until the end of the age. Pray, even when the prayer you offer is, “I can’t pray.” Pray that the seed of hope will sprout forth, sustaining you in the midst of your own trials with memories of God’s unconditional love for you.
In our memories and gratitude for those who came before us and made us who we are, may we always reconnect with the God to whom we all belong, whose love gathers us into one family of faith and people in his son, our Lord Jesus Christ who is always present in our midst.