Sometimes the best cure for forgetfulness
is a good dose of a loving reminder. [1]

Forgetting things is a sobering reminder that we are human. We forget where we put our keys. We forget what we went to the grocery store to get. We forget people’s names… or things we just heard. Holding our memories together can be frustrating, and at times, it troubles our hearts. As the American journalist Alexander Chase once put it, “Memory is the thing you forget with.” How good it is, then, when someone nearby, patient and loving, reminds us of the things we just can’t quite put our finger on.

Once, there was an elderly husband and wife who began noticing that they were forgetting little things around the house. They worried it might become dangerous, that one of them might forget to turn off the stove and cause a fire. So they went to see their doctor. The doctor told them that many people their age find it helpful to write themselves little notes as reminders. They thought this was a wonderful idea and left the office quite pleased. When they got home, the wife said, “Honey, would you go to the kitchen and get me a dish of ice cream? And maybe you should write that down so you don’t forget.” “Nonsense,” said the husband. “I can remember a dish of ice cream.” “Well,” she replied, “I’d also like some strawberries on it. You’d better write that down.” “Don’t be silly,” he said. “A dish of ice cream and strawberries. I’ve got it.” “Alright,” she continued, “but I’d like some whipped cream on top. Now you really should write it down.” “My memory’s not that bad,” he insisted. “No problem, a dish of ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream.”

With that, he went into the kitchen and shut the door. His wife could hear pots and pans clattering. It sounded like he was cooking something. About fifteen minutes later, he returned and presented her with a plate of bacon and eggs. She looked at the plate, then at him, and said, “I told you you’d forget something…Where’s the toast?”

Sometimes the best cure for forgetfulness is a good dose of a loving reminder. But what happens when both parties forget? There is, in a sense, another “elderly couple” known for forgetfulness, a figurative pairing within the life of the Church. The historian Jeffrey Burton Russell describes it this way: there has always been a tension between the spirit of order and the spirit of prophecy. Together, they create a necessary balance.[2] Both seek Christ. Both seek the Kingdom of God. But they serve different roles. Order seeks to shape people and institutions according to the will of God. Prophecy seeks to lift people and institutions beyond this world into the life of God. God uses both as reminders to the world of what it most needs:
Truth and Life. Through order, the Church establishes truth. Through prophecy, the Church proclaims life. And yet, both must be reminded that the only way this is possible is through the Son.

In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus’ farewell to His disciples, a moment that reveals the heart of the passage: the Way to the Father.[3] Jesus is saying goodbye because it is the order of God’s will. He is saying goodbye because He is about to fulfill prophecy, to be lifted out of this world. And yet the disciples struggle. “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” asks Thomas. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” asks Philip. For three years, they had listened. They had watched. They had walked with Him. So why do they forget? Because their hearts are troubled. That is something we understand. It is human nature to lose our way when the burdens and routines of life weigh us down. It is human nature to lose our way when our imaginations run ahead of us and we scatter ourselves in every direction.

So what do we do when we forget? We slow down… and listen for the loving reminder. We listen to the words given to us in Scripture and in sacrament. We listen to the words of Jesus, especially in the silence of our lives. As St. Ignatius once said, “He who possesses the words of Jesus is able to hear even His silence.” And in that silence, His words come back to us, to those who seek order, and to those drawn to prophecy, to all of us who, from time to time, forget the way.

With a loving reminder: “Let not your hearts be troubled” he serves it along with sweet clarity, to cure our forgetfulness. Like a dish of ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream on top, he offers this: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”

[1] The Rev. Jon Roberts
[2] Jeffrey Burton, The History of Medieval Christianity: Prophecy and Order, 1968
[3] John 14:1-14