Twenty years ago, this community was different. The March 29, 1998, tornado that stuck our city destroyed or damaged trees, businesses and public buildings, and homes. It changed the landscape and city. The storm system claimed two lives and changed countless others. Those who were here before and immediately after have a multitude of stories to share. As we mark this anniversary, we will share those stories, some untold for years. This is an effort to remember. It is a human trait.
Memory was important for the Jewish people, and therefore important for the early Christians, too. The Jewish people shared the story of the Exodus – their slavery in Egypt and how God powerfully saved them and lead them into freedom. The Passover meal that they gathered to share was not a quaint ritual or a play-acting. Instead, it was a solemn ‘remembering’ where the events of the past were brought into the present, and the partakers of the present meal were immersed into the events of the past. This type of memory is where the bounds of time and space breakdown. When they remembered, they allowed the actions to be new to them, and they drew strength from the memory.
At His last Passover before offering His life to the Father on the cross for our salvation, Jesus Christ initiated a new covenant and a new memorial, not marked with the blood of a lamb, but with His own blood. He instructed and ordained the Apostles, (and they in turn their successors) to offer the new sacrifice of bread and wine in His memory, and in doing so, He would be present. The act of remembering draws us to Calvary and we stand at the foot of the cross. The act of remembering give us strength and direction to move forward. So important for us as Catholics is that we take Jesus at His word - the bread and wine cease to be, and they are Jesus Christ’s body and blood, changed for our life and nourishment. This memory changes everything.
While certainly not as universal as the Passover or the Crucifixion or their commemorations, we make another kind of memorial as we commemorate the tornado. As we share the stories of before, during, and aftermath, we might in some way be drawn in time to that tragic day when all was changed. The question is whether we going to be bitter, holding on to anger and frustration for what was lost, or that we will be better by challenging ourselves to continue to seek to expand the good things that have occurred because the tornado? In the end, that is the challenge of our lives. We are challenged to do more than hold on to the memories of past events, but to allow them to instruct our future, calling to mind the good that the Lord has done even in our day.
