Personally, I am challenged to remember Christ in a new way. This means that I clear out from my memory bank images of  Jesus that do more harm than good in my relationship with him and with others. Hence, out with the €œmeek and mild Jesus who would never hurt a flea€ and in with the Jesus who turns my little world upside down.  It€™s not as easy as it sounds. It€™s far more complex than simply abandoning one image for another.

My image of Jesus is not an outside physical image, but an image from within that my heart more than my head says about him. I am not €œsentimentalising€ Jesus Christ.  I have come to understand, but not without any interior struggle, that it is in seeking his Divine Grace in life€™s ebb and flow - in hurts and pains, in  failure and defeat, and not just my own but those of others, too, as I put myself in their shoes, that I encounter him experientially. Whenever I recall those moments I feel renewed relationally. I remember him anew; I learn from him. My image of him, better yet, my vision of him enlarges. And I am revitalised inside out.

We€™re on about Jesus. What€™s more important is that Jesus is on about us. St. Paul writes to Timothy, €œRemember the Good News...€ (2 Timothy 2:8) and recommends that people be reminded about what Christ did, does, and will continue to do for us.

We welcome the Year of Grace as a call to keep the memory of Christ alive both in our public and private lives. By not falling into spiritual amnesia we bring his hope to a world that needs him now more than ever.