Looking out my door during an unusually heavy snowfall recently, I was reminded of some typical days growing up in Albany, N.Y. I can’t count the number of times I bundled up in double or triple layers to shovel the driveway before my dad came home from work.
I remember the sound of chains on the tires and walking to school on blizzardy days on the rare occasion buses weren't running. One year my dad donned snowshoes to rescue my cousins who tried to drive the few miles to our house for Thanksgiving.
When I shared that memory on social media, a cousin wrote back to tell me she remembered that Thanksgiving, and was one of those who got stuck with her parents. It was, she told me, the first time my mother held Thanksgiving dinner at our house for our very large extended family. I didn’t know that.
What followed was a social media conversation, including my only remaining aunt, in which we shared some wonderful memories long relegated to the past, but, in sharing, were now the source of warm feelings and a reminder of the bond we share as a family.
When I was a child in religious education classes, the nun once explained the Bible to us as a collection of memories of the Hebrew people and those who lived and served with Jesus, as well as those who had stories handed down to them from others.
I understood the concept of sharing memories when I was young, but it means much more to me now that I am older and I value the importance of maintaining the bonds of family. Where faith is concerned that would be the family of God.
The idea of memories has also helped me improve my relationship with Mary, our Blessed Mother. As a young woman, I felt I could never live up to Mary’s perfection. I kept her at a distance. But as a parent, I’m familiar with the whole isolated teenager experience.
What changed things for me was a scene in a movie, when Mary is faced with the impending crucifixion of Jesus and she has a flashback to Jesus as a child, running to her in tears because he had fallen and been hurt. He was comforted by her hug and the sound of her voice.
Faced with his death, she knew there was nothing she could do. No hug, no soothing words would change anything. And I sobbed my eyes out until I couldn’t breathe.
I began to reflect on the memories that would have filled her journal if she kept one, and I found myself growing closer to her. She was not just the young, beautiful girl envisaged in art all over the world, but a woman who aged, who experienced joy and incredible pain. She was like me, and I wanted her in my life.
Not all memories are pleasant. They do not bring about warm thoughts and feelings. I suspect the suffering and death of Jesus were traumatic memories for Mary and Jesus’ Apostles. But in sharing those memories in Scripture, the scribes of the Bible have made it possible for all of us who have come after to recognize our place at the table of the family of God.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.