Remembrance

Today is Holy Wednesday. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow, Christians remember Christ’s sacrifice with the Last Supper. Pastors, priests, bishops everywhere will recite the Words of Institution over Communion. “Christ took the bread and, having given thanks for it, he blessed it, saying, ‘this is my body, broken for you. Whenever you eat of it, remember me.’”
Today is also the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I don’t think many of us expected to still be in Iraq now. We have created a nightmare, and we are not helping it dissolve. We have seen men and women on both sides sacrifice for their God, for their country, for their family.
This week marks the end of Lent. In the Christian calendar, the 40-day season of Lent is a time of reflection and repentence leading up to the joy of Easter. It’s appropriate that the 5-year anniversary falls in Lent. We have much to repent for. We are all implicated in this war. We are all guilty. We all have the power to change it. Let us remember our dying brothers and sisters – Christian, Muslim, Jew, athiest – with mourning. Let us rise from their ashes with a fire for peace. Let us echo their screams of suffering with cries for justice.