Transcript of Abbot Clement s New Year’s Homily, January 1, 2008

To recall, to remember, belongs to the people of faith. We see it in the first reading as a summary of the reflection of the people on God’s marvelous deeds in their life and his blessings. So their expectation is his blessing. We see it in the gospel of the Blessed Mother who is remembering all the little events that show forth her motherhood. And we see it in Paul who recalls that Jesus is born as a true human being. Born of a woman and under the law and of course the Son of God he is to deliver us from all and every slavery. So the law of our life is to remember and to recall then of course the implication is to respond to it. In the Old Testament the people remembered all the way back to Adam and the creation itself. And especially, of course, they got better at it when it came to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, etc., but certainly once they were delivered from Egypt and all the actions that God performed in that deliverance made them realize that they were remembering not just events but the action of God. God’s actions were fruitful. That God’s actions were faithful. That God’s actions were unfolding a plan. That God’s actions were in some way fulfilling the mystery of his holiness toward his people.

Then the people themselves summarized these mysteries of God’s actions by feasts. So they celebrated the Passover. They celebrated Pentecost for them Pentecost was the covenanted year at the foot of Mt. Sinai plus the giving of the law. And they celebrated Booths as the remembrance of all the providential care God had for them when they were in the desert. They celebrated Purim which told them that even though they went through the exile they received many blessings from the Lord and God was the God of happiness and unfolding for their good. So because of those people we have the Old Testament. We have a sense of our origins and we have a sense of how God acts in history. So the early church followed the same pattern and remembered everything that God had done in Jesus Christ. The supreme example of this is the Blessed Mother in holding all these things in her heart.

It’s clear from Luke’s gospel even though it’s only mentioned twice, it’s an attitude in Mary. It’s an attitude that’s alive and fruitful and we see it blossom in the beautiful Magnificat. When the Blessed Mother not only acknowledges God’s blessings to her but how God is working in the whole of creation, especially for the work of redemption.

So we see in Mary who not only remembers not only the little events that took place when the shepherds came and told the message of the angels again which she knew but she still held it more deeply because these mysteries are profound manifestations of God’s action. So her faith grew and deepened especially as the shepherds came to adore, and the Magi, and of course the mystery of the circumcision

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where again what the angel told her before that his name would be Jesus is now taking place at circumcision. His name is Jesus. The profound meaning of that name has to be sounded in our lives because this is the person that has saved the whole world and everyone in it down through the ages. This is who we are dealing with.

So to remember and to recall is the mode we use to be blessed. It’s written in our life and our existence. We gather four times a day together or five times at times and we hear that mystery, the salvation history, mystery after mystery in our lives. We are blessed with this remembrance.

And of course the Lord is generous and merciful and he figured other ways to help people do it and so we came out with the rosary so that people who are not monks and not religious have the opportunity to also look at the whole series of mysteries by going through the rosary. They get the same mysteries. Why? Because when we who are believers recall a mystery it’s anamnesis is the technical word in theology. Anamnesis means when we gather for liturgy it is an event that calls for engagement and therefore there’s new blessings, new graces, from those feasts for us. So the greatest sickness we could have is amnesia. We all know that we all get forgetful at times but to have amnesia of these things is disastrous.

We need to take out time to enrich what we have to understand what it means for us to stand in the liturgy and to pray these mysteries and especially to join Jesus in his mission for the salvation of the world and for glorifying God which the world is in the state of amnesia.

Even today we know the people are throwing their Christmas trees out the day after Christmas. We know that all the music is gone, everything is gone what are we really celebrating? I know you are not like that, thanks be to God. But the fact is it’s our culture and we’re impacted by our culture whether we like it or not. So we have to protect ourselves and deepen this tremendous gift that we have of being placed in the sequence of the mysteries of our faith so that we engage them and that they become fruit for us. For the Lord’s going to ask us what did you do with all these good things that I gave you? What fruit did it bear in your life?

We have the Blessed Mother as our Mother this is a very important gift because like mother’s they don’t let go of their kids. Some of the mystics have said some very powerful things. If you have devotion to the Blessed Mother you’re almost guaranteed to get to heaven. Because that’s the way mother’s are. They won’t let you get lost. She’ll pursue you. When you look at the lives of some saints we see that it’s amazing how the Blessed Mother saved them at the last minute, etc.

So as we start the New Year we really have reason to be filled with hope because every time we gather in a liturgical setting we are at the opportunity for the blessings that Moses reminded Aaron and his priests to give to his people.

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