Not everyone gets a monument
but every one is worth remembering.
Memorial Day sneaks up on us this year, too soon after a late Easter and before we even realize that May is almost over. Was it early like this before? I don’t remember.
A day for keeping memorial turns our eyes toward memory. It is important, it is laudable and encouraged, to remember the many souls who have served and sacrificed even their own lives for our good. If we cannot call to mind family members or friends we know by name or story or portrait, we can wander amidst stone memorials that spread across green hills nearby, and spring up where roads meet for the traffic to circle with drivers unaware. Open a book, go for a stroll, inquire with an elderly neighbor; you will find a life to remember.
Is it possible to remember someone you never knew? Not only is it possible but even necessary, would be my assessment. Equally vivid in my mind are the contours and characters of lives about whom I simply read, even decades or already half a century ago; and lives about whom I heard from friends who knew them, loved them, and lost them, for whom memory is not an option, but an obligation and an honor.
Memory, then, is where we may keep and cherish what is no more, treasuring intact, that is, re-membering what is dissolved or shattered to pieces. Memory then can be swathed in sadness for what or who is lost to us in any other way.
But memory’s most practical aspect, where resides our faculties of learning and knowing and understanding, reveals that memory is in fact rooted in the past but oriented toward tomorrow. We remember how to find our way, where we left some item we need, or how to reach a friend. We remember what works and what fails to work to achieve a desired goal. We remember an insight, idea, or concept that when applied in the moment will transform our dilemma into opportunity. What resides in memory is far from being lost!
As creatures we are distinguished to have intellect and will. So also in having memory are we in the image and likeness of God, whose memory is the model of ours but more powerful and perfect. God calls us into being by calling us to His mind. When He re-members, He calls into being once again; or rather, He continues to hold in being for eternity.
When we pray for God to remember, we are asking of Him something both similar to and different from what we ourselves do. Remember your compassion and your mercy, O Lord, for they are ages old. Remember no more the sins of my youth; remember me according to your mercy, because of your goodness, Lord. (Psalm 25:6–7) His compassion and mercy never went away, never dissolved, but calling on Him to re-member them and re-member us in accord with them is to beg to be re-made according to the glory for which He called us to His mind in the beginning.
Memory, then is a light to our steps, not a dark path. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name -- he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. (Jn 14:26) The God who gave us the ability to recognize and remember is the God Who reveals His promise as a memory and fulfills it daily in His memorial. Do this in memory of me. (Lk 22:19) To remember both what God has already done and what He has promised to do makes our memory the ground of faith, the seat of hope. To remember is thus the work of love.
It is good that our nation give a day to Memorial. Not only monuments and mementoes, but doing the good work for one another that is calling to mind the good they have done for us. Let our memories re-member their good work, and let their good deeds go with them. (cf. Rev. 14:13) The mercy we re-member is God’s own; the good work of memory is ours to share.
Monsignor Smith
