How we can receive more from the Mass – 23 (Do this in memory of me)
What is a memory? That may seem an elementary question, but I suspect that it may be a deeper question than it first appears. Some memories are trivial with no potency, having little or no effect on us in the here and now. Yet other memories can be very powerful indeed and, even many years later, affect us viscerally. The trauma of PTSD is caused by the re-living of a traumatic memory – the sufferer is re-entering the very events that caused their condition. That memory is alive in the present, re-lived and embodied in the symptoms of PTSD. For a more positive example, I recall watching a film where a couple who were going through marital difficulties attended a wedding ceremony of mutual friends. As the ceremony progressed, they were both reminded of their own wedding – they re-entered and re-lived their own wedding and the vows that they made. Unnoticed to others, one reached down to the left hand of the other, and caressed their wedding ring...