Memory is an interesting thing.  I always secretly chuckle when someone asks me, “Father, do you remember your homily from five weeks ago?”  I generally respond, “What did you find interesting about it?”  as an alternative to the simple, “No.”  

There are many theories around the topic of memory apart from where the memory is associated with specific events, a general occurrence, personal experience, and more. Whatever the memory, we have to “register” the memory, store it and then recall it.  A recent study proposed there is a six-stage neuro-chemical process that has to occur for a memory to be retained long-term. Want an example. Consider dreams. Why can we remember some dreams in vivid and exacting detail, but other dreams just seem to dissolve into nothingness. Memory is a mysterious thing.

I guess there was something about the homily that for one listener that gave enough “energy” to satisfy the complex “registration” in longer term memory.  Me?  I “register” them on paper and long-term store them on my computer because between now and 5 weeks ago there are a lot of other homilies, blog posts, and more. I remember where to find it.

Thankfully, the apostles wrote things down too so that their experience and memory of their time with Jesus would be captured and available to us. In the core of today’s gospel the memory of the early Christian community is captured for us: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, … Whoever does not love me does not keep my words” (John 14:23, 24).  And we delve into our memory to ask: “Have I kept his word?”

In conversations with my siblings, I am always amused when our memories of shared childhood events are so different. Beyond neuroscience and all the rest, I wonder if we are people who have remarkably flexible memories where the event meets our creativity. Live long enough and you discover people regularly skew actual experience in favor of the stories we want to be true.

We hold memories about ourselves – and more than what we have done, who we know, places we have been.  We hold memories of who we were, who we are, and those memories point to the future of who we are becoming.  I think all here, including myself, would hold that we are good people, we are believing people, that we love God.  I think all here would want other people’s memories about us and our lives to be consistent with our own perception – our own memory.  It is not just that we want people to think well of us; we want people to think well of us, because we are in fact “good people” through whom the love of God is evident and enters into the world.  We want their actual experience to match our memories.

The question lingers: “Have I kept his word?”

Too often we simply understand “keep” as “obey.”  But how is love and keeping his word connected? When the gospel says “keep” a good paraphrase of this word is “hold dear.”  Because we love Jesus, we hold his word dear. But is not a passive memory of fondness, “hold dear” bespeaks action – to love one another as we have been loved.

The gospel is the story of Jesus “holding dear” the word of the Father.  Jesus gave his life for people. He served people. He helped people. He healed people. He fed people. He liberated people. He taught people. He encouraged people. He blessed people. He prayed for people. He felt compassion for people. He forgave people. He resisted evil for people. 

He laid down his life in love for everyone and he said to us, “Now you go and do the same thing. Love others as I have loved you.” There it is…. The word to which we are to hold dear.  The memory we are to live and become.

When these words are lived out they become the keepsakes of our memories. The moments when, in memory of Jesus, we serve, help, heal, feed, liberate, teach, encourage, bless, prayer, forgive and more – because we hold these actions and these people dear – all because we hold dear Jesus the one who gave the Word, who lived the Word, who is the very Word of God. 

Our life gives evidence and bears fruit that we hold dear that Word. We have kept His Word.

…and I pause to remember…. Is this actually my life or a remarkably creative memory of my life?

We hold memories about ourselves about who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.  I pray that others perceive we are in fact “good people” through whom the love of God is evident and enters into the world. 

God has given us an Advocate to remind us and teach us the Word to hold dear and grace to live it. Do that then you will know a peace that the world can not give.

May the peace of Christ be yours.

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Image credit: Christ’s Final Address to the Apostles | Bona Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1380 | from the Maesta Altar | Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo | PD-US