Forget Me Not

Remembering our identities and God with the memoria

05/17/2017

Matthew 18:21–19:1 Peter approached Jesus and asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him ?As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.' Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, 'Pay back what you owe.' Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt.

             One of the saddest things I encounter in visiting the elderly is when someone suffers from dementia, especially the loss of memory. Sometimes they cannot even remember their own husband or wife, or their children. Did you see the movie “The Notebook”? It shows how losing your memory really leads to losing your identity. When the elderly woman heard her husband read the stories from the Notebook, the elderly women not only was able to connect to her past, but really connect to herself, her identity. In other words, not remembering your past is really an inability to know yourself. That’s why those fleeting minutes when she did remember her history and the couple danced together were so poignant and everyone cries in the movie, even priests!

               St. Augustine taught that the soul has three chief powers: the intellect, the will and the memory (in Latin, “memoria”), and the memory is the main faculty not only to our identity, but also to God. That’s why St. Augustine would write in his classic word, Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee” (Confessions, X). The reason we are restless is because of a faulty memory: we have forgotten who we are, as well as whose we are. Our memories are supposed to remind us that we come from God, and we will return to God, but we forget. In a sense, we all suffer from dementia.

               In the gospel today, Jesus tells a parable about forgiveness. Peter asks how often he should forgive and Jesus gives the example of a servant who is forgiven a large debt but then turns around and shows no mercy toward a fellow servant who owes him much less. But for me, the point of the parable is as much about forgetfulness as about forgiveness. What do I mean? The problem of the parable’s protagonist is that he forgets too quickly how he enjoyed mercy, and failing to remember that moment of grace, he turns around and condemns his fellow servant. The Spanish philosopher, George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The parable’s protagonist needed to watch the movie “The Notebook” and learn how forgetting the past really leads to forgetting himself, and ultimately, to forgetting God. He had experienced God’s forgiveness at the hands of his master, and he forgot it, and thereby he lost not only himself, but also God.

              My friends, today pray for God to strengthen your memoria. And I don’t just mean so you can remember people’s names better, or so you can perform better at work, or so you can out-smart your spouse when you argue because you remember things better than they do. Rather, ask God to help you burn into your memory experiences of his grace, the milestones of mercy you have enjoyed – like the protagonist in the parable had, or the elderly couple enjoyed while they danced. Our memoria is our link not only with ourselves, but also with God. At the very heart of the Mass, the priest ends the words of consecration by saying, “Do this in memory of me.” Why? Well, because the memory is a liturgical faculty, and without a strong memory, we cannot worship God.  That’s why the Mass is filled with remembering the great things God has done in the past, the “mirabilia Dei,” the marvels of God.

             “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” Our hearts are restless because we forget.

Praised be Jesus Christ!