The cemetery at Oxford, Our Lady of Sorrows Cemetery, is to be saved and preserved even after the Dominican presence is ended.
In that cemetery rest the earthly remains of many of the originals, those whose names can evoke so many memories.
Mother Mary Joseph and Mother Lucille.
And Sister Michalene and Sr. Andrea and Sr. Annunciata and Sr. Bernadette and Sr. Imelda and Sr. Lawrence . . .
And Sister Mary . . and on and on and on . . .
And Sr. Rosaria - kindergarten teacher; taught us the importance of taking a nap!
And of the beauty and joy of music!
And Sr. Barbara - yes, Sister, you really did take that ruler to my knuckles. In those later years you would deny it. You would declare that I was the "best behaved of all your students." But, come on, you and I both know that was just not true.
No matter because you could take pride in those whose lives you helped to shape. And I am glad that you could take pride in me!
And Sr. Mary Forever Nameless - you know who you are if you remember. You were the one who asked us where we planned to go for high school and when I told you that I intended to enter the seminary, you declared that to be the most ridiculous of ideas! "Get it out of your head!" you proclaimed.
Know what?
Your challenge just may have been what I needed to get me where I have gone and so, Thank You!
And then there is that one particular spot, that one most remarkable grave.
From the road to the cemetery there is a walking path, but it is not just a simple walk or stroll.
It actually is a way marked by the Stations.
The Way of the Cross.
The traditional stations of the cross mark that path, that way.
And the Twelfth Station bears that very special marker.
It is the resting place of the earthly remains of Fr. Joseph Zalibera, the man who inspired so much of this history.
But back up just a bit in this walk down that Memory Lane Path!
Back up to the very beginning of that path.
An altar of a sort is there, right at the very start of that path.
Backing that altar is an image of the Pieta.
And with that altar comes more memories.
Octobers and those Sundays each year in October when we would journey by bus loads out to Oxford. The faithful came not just from SS. Cyril and Methodius Parish but from a number of other churches around southeastern Michigan.
Busses came bearing pilgrims.
We came to walk in the October chill along the roads of the Oxford campus, praying out loud. We prayed the Rosary. We sang hymns in honor of the Lady, our Mother, imaged in that Pieta holding her beloved Son just as we believed she held us and holds us still.
We prayed and sang and processed until we came to this place, this altar.
And there we were blessed.
Fr. Joseph Zalibera held high the Eucharistic Monstrance and blessed the People of God.
Paused as we are at that spot, let me share a more recent memory of that place.
With all those past memories in mind, on the very first Memorial Day that I was retired, I made a suggestion.
Let's have Memorial Day Mass there, outside, at that altar which stands at the beginning of the path to the Oxford cemetery. There is so much history there, so many memories!
And so we did, indeed, have Mass there that day.
And the sisters and the others who came sat on park benches gathered around that altar.
In the sunlight.
The hot sunlight!
Seems that on that particular Memorial Day Mother Nature decided to "bless" us with not just good weather but with good, warm, very warm weather.
A 90 degree sun shone down on us as we gathered that Memorial Day at that altar.
And the very next year, as Memorial Day approached, I was informed by the good sisters of Oxford, "Please, Father, we are not going outside for Mass again! Please!"
Memories!
Of a path,
and a place,
and a cemetery,
and of those whose remains rest there.
Memories.
But Sunday approaches.
And that Gospel - Matthew 5: 17 - 37
Have you looked at it yet?
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