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BEING AMERICAN AND CATHOLIC - #10

	Memory plays a major role in all the historical religions.  
The Christian Eucharist is a memorial of the passion, death and 
resurrection of the Lord.  Catholics celebrate the anniversaries of 
birth and baptisms and weddings.  We feast when a parish is 25, 50 
or 100 years old.  We remember our beloved who have died on All 
Souls Day (November 2) and throughout the month of November.  
We are rooted in past history.  We know its power every time we 
gather for ritual prayer.  We cherish memories in our personal and 
family lives.  Our present is rooted in the past and is focused on the 
future.  Christ will come again – to deliver us, to bring us glory, to 
complete God's plan for the world.
	Memory influences the spirituality of each Catholic.  I often 
remember my boyhood pastor at Saint Boniface Church in Elmont, 
N.Y.  His name was Monsignor Joseph W. Hack.  He was greatly 
loved as a kind man, a good priest, and a considerate pastor.  He 
was not a good preacher.  In fact, he usually read to us the sermon 
outline that the Diocese of Brooklyn put out for each Sunday.  In 
those days the sermon was not based on the bible readings 
proclaimed at the liturgy.  Instead the sermon was used to instruct 
Catholics on the Ten Commandments or on our duties to the 
institutional church.  But, despite his unimaginative sermons, the 
people liked Msgr. Hack.  He was a builder and a good fundraiser.  If 
there were more than 3 people at a service, he'd say to me: "Johnny, 
take up the collection."  This earned him the nickname, "Greenback 
Hack."  (Unfortunately, I never got a percentage of the collections I 
helped take up!)  The thing I remember the most was that Msgr. 
Hack would turn off the lights before all the people left the church.   
I learned from that.  I never turn off the church lights when there are 
people still in Church.
	Most Catholics are filled with memories of their experience 
of the church and their parish.  If a person is a cradle Catholic, 
memories go back to childhood.  There was a smell, a feel, an 
atmosphere to the church building.  Chances are certain persons 
were larger than life – a pastor, a priest who befriended your family, 
a sister or a brother from a religious community, a deacon, a lay 
minister who brought communion to your father or mother at home.  
For sure, it takes years to undo negative experiences, to forgive 
someone from the Pastoral staff that may have offended you or 
treated you badly.  (Every institution and profession has its 
clunkers!).  Catholics who came into Catholicism from another 
Christian Experience or who were baptized at 6 or 18 or at 40 have 
their conversion stories to tell – why they became Catholic, what 
attracted them, what keeps and sustains their faith, etc.
	We live our history in our rituals and public prayers.  Some 
Catholics are romantic in their memory.  A friend of mine recently 
rhapsodized about his memories of the music that was used at the 
Latin Mass.  He told me about its mystical beauty.  I remember 
singing the Latin Mass.  Some were chanted beautifully, many more 
were cacophonous and deadly.

	What is your personal history of being a Catholic?

			John J. O'Brien, C.P.










Note to Press: This document printed at: 11/20/02 3:18 PM