Passionist Archives—The Memoria Passionis
by Morgan Hanlon, C.P.
In his lead article of this first issue of Passionist Heritage, Fr. Rob Carbonneau states that we Passionists have a dual role. We must preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we must share with others our own Passionist story. No one will deny that we must preach the Gospel—especially the Passion-Gospel. But our own story? Aren't we getting off the point here? Whose Passion are we preaching, anyway?
Yet, I believe that Rob has drawn our attention to something very important for an understanding of the fullness of our mission and charism. For if we truly believe that the Church—the People of God—make Christ present in each succeeding age of the world and in every place on the face of the globe, then the story of that People becomes Christ's story too. It becomes the story of how Christ succeeds and fails in every generation, in every climate and nation. The story, when it is of success, becomes the inspiration for succeeding generations; when of failure, a lesson to be absorbed for future efforts.
Everything that lives and breathes remembers. Memory is our link with the past, with our roots - it tells us who we are and how we came to be what we are. Memory is also our guide into the future.
In his article "Remembering the Passion of Christ" Fr. Barnabas Ahern CP declares that "Because the covenant revealed God 's saving purpose and his powerful readiness to show mercy to what is poor and weak…the memory of Yahweh's part intervention taught Israel to expect that same (mercy) would be operative in the future." Barnabas continues "…God himself makes present and operative (in the Eucharist) the past events of Jesus' death and resurrection. This living memorial is not only at the heart of the eucharist but it belongs also to the very essence of the gospel which God proclaims is his church through his ambassadors. Thus the eucharist as living memorial becomes…the source and model of Christ's suffering and death." 1
Passionist Archives, therefore, are a concrete manifestation of the "memoria Passionis" which lives in power in the Church—a "remembering" which, by its power of recalling God's mercies also has the power to re-create those mercies in the future. A Passionist Archives is, then, a place ( and a process) where the concrete tokens of that Divine Mercy are held in reverent custody, a place that can communicate hope, and zeal for the future.
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