Friday, 5/10/13
Please, let me to be
sentimental over Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel. In taking leave of his
disciples whom he loved dearly, he said, “I’ll see you again.”
One of our regulars
at our morning Mass has plans to take her granddaughter on a trip to France
this summer, and her talking about it has caused me to suddenly remember how
impossible such a trip would have been when I was that granddaughter’s age.
In June of 1940 the
Nazi Army drove the remnants of the British Army off the northern French beach
at Dunkirk, and after that for four years until D Day of 1944 no one could
visit France, and no one in France was allowed to leave.
In England and
America we were using songs to express our grief over being totally separated
from loved one in France. We sang, “The last time I saw Paris our hearts were
young and gay.” And in hopes that the horror would end we sang, “I’ll see you
again.”
“I'll see you again
whenever spring breaks through again. Time may lie heavy between, but what has
been is past forgetting. Those sweet memories across the years will come to me.
Though our world may go awry, in our hearts will never die just the echo of our
sigh: goodbye.”
People today do not realize that in 1943 we were not certain
that we would win the war. I remember a broadcasts from the French Underground
in which they sang the same song in French. I think it began, “Nous, nous reveron.”
We loved each other, and as Christian nations we should not be
afraid of expressing our love.
No comments:
Post a Comment