Remembering and Being Remembered (Christ the King)

Over the past couple of days I have been on retreat with my team - a chance as the end of the year looms closer but the workload continues, to re-centre, refocus and renew.

Like most retreat venues, this one is in a natural setting, and not too far from a major population centre. But development is creeping ever closer. And the newest of these developments is a very large cemetery, right across the road. So new that only a handful of burials have taken place in each section so far.

In modern parlance it is called a Memorial Park. A place built not to dispose of the dead, but to preserve their memory. And as I walked through it this week it brought to mind this Sunday’s Gospel reading. In it we hear Luke’s account of the crucifixion. Of the onlookers, and even one of those crucified beside Jesus who mocked and jeered at his suffering.

But we also hear the lone voice of the one that asks, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

From his own cross, and from his own brokenness, the penitent man that tradition calls Dismas, wants to be remembered. Not for his sin, but for his humanity.

As the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King this Sunday, Dismas’ plaintive cry calls to us too. That although we easily remember the hurtful things that people may have done to us, truly building up the Kingdom of God means requires us to exercise the same forgiveness and mercy that Christ did from within his own suffering. To remember the humanity of those that trespass against us.

Jesus, remember the goodness in me. And help me to remember the innate goodness in others too.

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