Memorial or Anniversary Sunday
Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28b-34
Just pause and ask yourself, why celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries, death remembrances, Thanksgiving Day, War memorials, Independence Day, name it? Although these memorial/anniversary celebrations have become so common place, two reasons, at least, motivate them: they celebrate our past and chart the way for our future. Each one of us is the junction or meeting point between the past and the future—to either savor the good past in the present or transform the bad past into good present and better future. More often than not, it is a good foundation laid in the past that gives right to every memorial and anniversary celebration.
Although mothers don’t get a lot of credit at birthday celebrations, their decisions not to abort us make every birthday possible—our today’s birthday connects us to our past, our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, the list is long. Today’s Thanksgiving and Independence celebrations link us up to those parents, grandparents, and great grandparents who migrated and some of whom fought for a better world that we enjoy today. Each anniversary makes us debtors to the past and creditors to the future and grateful persons in the present. Remember that a grateful person is one who is capable of loving and appreciating the sacrifices of others.
Instead of thinking of our first and gospel readings in terms of rules and regulations—the laws we need to keep—our first reading invites us to celebrate the memorial-of-love for the gift of freedom we enjoy today. It was at their arrival in the Promised Land that our first reading invites the Israelites to renew their love for the sacrifices of those who died in slavery in Egypt, to remember those who migrated but did not make it to the Promised Land and to appreciate the God who journeyed with them by his presence as pillar of cloud by day and column of fire by night. It is a love triangle of God, our neighbors, and ourselves. The celebration of liberation and independence from Egypt is the occasion for our first reading—a love-feast of sorts. It is by remembering the past that we are able to appreciate the present and prepare ourselves for the future.
This Sunday is Memorial/Anniversary Sunday. We remember the God who intervenes to install justice and liberation for the oppressed. On this Sunday, we remember our obligation to love one another as the only intervention that eradicates injustices and brings happiness to all. Others sacrificed for what we enjoy today; out of love, we ought to continue the same sacrificial love for a better tomorrow.
“Hear Oh Israel” is a warning song to remember how hatred and oppression made life bitter and unpalatable in Egypt; but above all, how love changes the world for the better by eliminating injustices through the power of sacrifice. To “hear” is to be ready to act because God “heard” the cry of enslaved Israelites, and he intervened to liberate them from enslavement to the Egyptians.
Anniversary/Memorial Sunday is a call to become interventionists like God, who hears and acts. This is only possible when we all become crusaders of love. There are no commandments to be kept in our first reading, but there are people to be loved—our neighbors—and God himself, who intervenes out of love and becomes pilgrim with pilgrims. You know what, you are God’s unique Commandment —the love and lover God puts on earth right now to make a difference.
Our gospel reading gives God a human face—Jesus Christ. The visibility of God permits the question of today’s gospel—what is the meaning of God’s commandments and NOT the numbers of God’s commandments. Jesus’ answer reminds us that, where there is love, there are no commandments. Countries have laws, and individuals go to courts because there are laws to respect. We need law enforcement officers because obedience must be obliged and not taken for granted.
Anniversary Sunday is the reminder to us that love is possible, because Jesus so loved the world that he gave his life for all (John 3:16) and those who do love today sacrifice all for peace and justice in the world. The sacrifices of pregnant women, the labor of men and women to feed their families, the guarantee of functional welfare systems and the availability of “palliatives” to the downtrodden of our societies are efforts in love.
The capacity to love is limited by death, but it is carried forward by the living in every generation. However, since God lives forever and beyond the limits of death, our second reading makes Jesus Christ’s supreme act of love, by dying for us, a model of love from one generation to the next—“God is love” and so must we become. The eternity of Jesus, as explained in the second reading, makes every charitable act an investment in immortality, and every “lover” is a shareholder in the life and interventions of God.
Some of us today are still in Egypt because we suffer injustices of different magnitudes. Some of us are on our way out of Egypt, either as pilgrims seeking the Promised Land of Heaven and/earth or as new arrivals in a safe haven (a new country). Whatever may be our situation, love keeps us going: that is the message of today, to find a place for love in our inter-human relationships, beyond any laws to the contrary. Love weathers every storm because it keeps us going despite all odds against us. Indeed, as recipients of love from God, our parents, siblings, neighbors, friends, and all people of love, let us make that love go around and not let it stop with us. Memorial Sunday is just about LET THERE BE LOVE FOR EVERYONE! This is the point the “love of God and neighbor” emphasizes. Will you be a channel of love?
Assignment for the Week :
Locate fellow pilgrims and offer them some love.