https://youtu.be/EvC1eMA-Q64?si=p13z1ONcZIeJOLGr
2. Song
https://youtu.be/dyibmm1OQ_Y?si=RV3hwI0zgnzijSTQ
3. Narrative
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Uses of Memory
I AM INCLINED to believe that God's chief purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so that if we didn't play those roles right the first time round, we can still have another go at it now. We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.
The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.
-Originally published in Telling Secrets
Richard Rohr reflects on the prophetic task of integrating our individual and collective memories, which creates the conditions for hope within us:
Memory is very often the key to understanding. Memory integrates, reconciles, and puts the individual members into perspective as a part of the whole. For us to recognize what God is doing and therefore who God is, we must pray like Paul “that your love may more and more abound, both in understanding and wealth of experience” (Philippians 1:9).
Our remembrance that God has remembered us will be the highway into the future, the straight path of the Lord promised by John the Baptizer [see Luke 3:3–6]. Where there is no memory, there will be no pain, but neither will there be hope. Memory is the basis of both the pain and the rejoicing. We need to re-member both of them; it seems that we cannot have one without the other. Do not be too quick to “heal all of those memories,” unless that means also feeling them deeply and taking them all into our salvation history. God seems to be calling us to suffer the whole of reality, to remember the good along with the bad. Perhaps that is the course of the journey toward new sight and new hope. Memory creates a readiness for salvation, an emptiness to receive love, and a fullness to enjoy it.
Only in an experience and a remembering of the good do we have the power to stand against this death [caused by evil]. As Baruch tells Jerusalem, we must “rejoice that you are remembered by God” [5:5]. In that remembrance we have new sight, and the evil can be absorbed and blotted out.
It takes a prophet of sorts, one who sees clearly, one who has traveled the highway before, one who remembers everything, to guide us beyond our blocked, selective, and partial remembering: “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever” [Baruch 5:1]. Choose your friends carefully and listen to those who speak truth to you and help you remember all things.
Ask God for companions (sometimes Jesus alone!) who will walk the highway of remembering with you, filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains and hills, making the winding ways straight and the rough ways smooth. Then humankind shall see the salvation of God.
The repentance that the Baptist calls us to is one of remembering, and of remembering together, and then bearing the consequences of that remembrance. It is no easy matter, for the burden of re-membering is great. But we must try for the sake of truth.
So “Up Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights; look to the east and see” your whole life. See what God has given freely. [Our] hope lies hidden in the past. “And rejoice that you are remembered by God.”
Reference: Richard Rohr, Near Occasions of Grace (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 3–5.
4. Prayer
Free us to be present to Your caressing presence right now. Jesus, heal our crippled memories that don't allow us to climb the stairs of freedom and wholeness.
5. Meditation
https://youtu.be/LHPRaz5TlQ4?si=xFZ9bCwXGAk1ljIe
6. Song
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