Homilies

November 4, 2007
Reflections shared by Irene Ellis, OP

“God made them worthy of God’s calling and powerfully brought to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith, that the name of Jesus be glorified according to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ” Paul to the Thessalonians

We gather today as the Sparkill Dominican Community of Sisters, Associates, family and friends of our sisters who have passed from this Life to Eternal Life. Welcome to the family members and friends of our deceased sisters, those who are here for the first time and those who faithfully return year after year.

We gather to remember those who have died during the past year, and all the Sparkill Dominican women who have gone before us.  In the entrance procession this morning two holy books were carried into the chapel and placed on the podium.  These books are holy because they contain the names of all 523 Sparkill Dominican women whom we celebrate today.

To remember – to actively enkindle within the memory of someone we loved and held precious – someone who loved us, inspired us, knew our souls, prepared the way for us - is an important and powerful act.

In his book Eternal Echoes, John O’Donohue, tells us that memory rescues experience from total disappearance.  He says that Memory provides shelter and continuity of identity.  O’Donohue tells us that in the act of remembrance we are gathered and rooted.

May, the very sensitive and highly emotional sister in “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kid needed help holding her memories of pain and loss and so she created a Memory Wall.  May was a suffering soul.  She experienced not only her own personal losses, but the tragedies of the whole world.  When she could not take it any more she wrote the sadness on a little piece of paper and placed it within the stones of her wall.  The Wall held May’s memories for her, and May was brought back, however fleetingly, to balance and peace.

Many who are here today are still grieving the loss of a beloved family member, a sister recently passed.  I have learned alot about death during the fairly recent past with the passing of my mother, my father, and my dear sponsor and sister Regina Anne. Grief and loss can be so great that they can’t be dealt with all at once, and so they sit inside us and wait for those moments and opportunities when we know our grief can be held.  Together with those who share our loss we review events, and remember, feel relief and are somehow healed bit by bit. 

We need to remember because it is in the remembering that we keep alive the connections.  In remembering we experience the relationship that seems gone and absent as alive and real.

This is what happened to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  As they walked along remembering the tragic events of the past days and sharing their loss and sadness Jesus came to be with them.  We all know the story – the disciples, while experiencing Jesus’s Presence did not recognize him until their eyes were opened during the breaking of the bread.  When they realized that the one whom they loved was alive and present in their midst their hearts burned within them.  This Emmaus experience brought to life the instruction of Jesus at the Last Supper “Do This in Memory of Me”.   

In this month’s National Geographic there is an excellent article on Memory and the activity of remembering as a physiological process of the brain.  When Jesus asked to be remembered he was not talking about remembering in this sense.  Jesus was talking about the remembering that connects us to the Living Presence. A Presence that makes our hearts burn within. A Presence that moves us into communion with all Creation.           

In the Gospel today Zaccheus remembered Jesus.  Z. shook off the negativity around and within him – he did not let the limitations posed by his physical reality have the last word.  Z. wanted to see Jesus.  He knew within him the longing to see the Face of God. 

I like Z because I feel a kinship with him. I am not a tax collector, nor am I wealthy however, much of the time I live the day-to-day overwhelmed by responsibility, challenging circumstances or demands – feeling limited by lack of time, energy or self-doubt.  But existing right within and alongside all of this reality, the deepest desire of my Life is to see God’s Face – to know and live in God’s Heart - to live according to God’s purpose for me.

What is the yearning of the deer for the running water that the Psalmist names?  What is this longing for God that we all experience?  I believe it is our soul’s remembering from whence we came.  As we live from day to day our deepest nature seeks oneness with the Divine.
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In the Gospel story Jesus directed Z. to come down.  Jesus said to Z. “I must stay at your house.”  Jesus found the openness and longing of Z irresistible.  Z remembered Jesus and Z came face-to-face with his own true self.  Z ‘s mind and heart and Life were changed.

Our availability to God’s presence and power – our willingness to open and surrender ourselves in Love each day will transform us, gradually, or maybe all at once.  We will move ahead with an ever deepening awareness of our true selves, of our purpose and our mission.

Each of the women we remember in this Liturgy today lived in faithfulness to the call and presence of God in their lives.  Whatever the circumstances, challenges, joys or sorrows, times of sickness or of health, their lives were spent discovering and bringing the Presence of God to all around them.

The sisters we remember today have been found irresistible by the God who loves them.  They now know the Oneness – the Completeness of the Transformation that God offers. 
They are alive in Spirit and are present here with us today.  When we remember them in love we reach into the Spiritual Life and Energy they hold for us.  They are available to Grace us, to Guide and Protect us. We remember them with gratitude and we are inspired and strengthened. We carry forward the love, and faithfulness and legacy of their lives.