The Gift of Memory: Precious and Powerful
by Harriet Holles, BVM

Remember the long way that your God
has led you these many years…
Deuteronomy 8:2

What a wondrous gift is memory, the process or power of remembering, the mystery of bringing the legacy of the past into the living present to be carried into a new future!

Remembering is essential to the formation of identity, personal as well as group. The memory of one's life experiences and the meaning they hold continues to create the person one is becoming.

From common experiences and shared values, memory also forms the relationships of family and shapes the bonds of friendship, community and church. Without a common remembered history and heritage, no group, large or small, can continue to thrive.

The treasury of memory captures riches to be recalled whenever one wishes. Our senses deposit a multitude of odors, tastes, shapes, colors and sounds. Among the plentitude our emotions offer for remembrance are joy and sorrow, fear, desire and gratitude. We are blessed also through remembering other sources of truth and wisdom—persons, images, thoughts, books, dreams.

The ability to remember is one of the loveliest realities of our inner world. Experience, whether joyful or painful, is gathered, tended and stored in our wonderfully wise body as possibility for transformation, integration and new meaning. As we reflect, perhaps we find ourselves humming Bob Hope's signature song, “Thanks for the memories. . . . thank you so much.”

Container of Identity

Memory creates our identity as family—parents, children, ancestors, descendents—and provides the security of being rooted against the trials of life.

A mother blesses her children as they leave home in the morning with the admonition to remember who you are. Remember the experiences which have formed you, the struggles which have bonded you, the people who have shaped you, the values we hold in common.

A father retells the stories the generations have created and the common longings for the future. Know the meaning of being marked by grandparents, great and great-great, and carry something of this family with you.

From Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats to the saga of Rosa Parks, we recognize the power of memory to sustain us against life's struggles and to call us home.

Significant remembering, more than mere sentimental reminiscing, has depth and power. We recall and bring to awareness the past but perhaps with much greater clarity than in casual storytelling.

Recollection of the difficult paths and courageous choices of our forebears empowers us; it engenders hope. We marvel with gratitude at the ways they not only endured but developed, enriched and transformed their corner of the world. If she could remain faithful, if he could act with justice, so can I!

Remembering can also act as a deterrent, as a counter to certain kinds of actions. Stories of terror, tales of slavery, examples of exclusion invite, maybe even compel us to act differently, to choose and to work against injustice, violence and silence and for justice, peace and inclusion.

Recently, the Amish community, as they mourned the senseless and violent attack on ten of their little girls, five of whom died, wrote forgiveness large for all to see. We can learn, must learn, from our history—otherwise we are condemned to repeat it. Such dangerous memories teach and correct in order to invite a different response in the present and in the future.

Shared Stories

Living tradition, the common memory of a genuine community, is often carried in narrative. Stories tell how the group came to be and offer mentors, persons who lived and shaped the spirit of the group. Here is the history of communal deeds and of suffering, both lived and inflicted upon others.

Living tradition provides nourishment for a community's future and strength to remedy the mistakes of the past. And so we regularly hold our lives for inspiration against the backdrop of Sarah and Abraham, of Francis and Clare of Assisi, of Mary Frances Clarke and her companions, of Dorothy Day, of Martin Luther King.

As Christians we are in primary dialog with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a most significant remembering. In Eucharist we remember his paschal mystery as well as the mystery of dying and rising in the lives of all believers.

Through shared story and shared meal we respond to Jesus' poignant request to be remembered. This is more than mere reminiscing or recalling. We com-memorate, literally “remember with the community” the saving events of Christ's paschal mystery, our salvation history. In being remembered in community in the present, these events are effective. All that God did then, we experience now. The paschal events of Christ occur still and point to their fulfillment in the future.

Memory Loss

Sages claim that nothing in this life is ever lost. Forgetting, the inability to use memory, as in amnesia or dementia, or the subversion of memory, as in keeping secrets, or erasure of persons or events from history steals the identity of a person or a group.

Not to be remembered is to lose part of who you are. But every time we respect the temporary lack of memory, and seek to recover, restore or rectify memory loss, we contribute to the fullness of life.

And, wonder of wonders, each one of us is held within the infinite memory of our Creator and known intimately by name.

With God nothing of our goodness or our humanness is forgotten. Each dear hair is counted; every cup of cold water given is numbered. We remember this Mystery, who also remembers us, and pray in the words of Denise Levertov in her poem:

And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
Hour by hour sustain it. (1) 

Footnote:
1 Levertov, Denise. “Primary Wonder,” Sands of the Well. New Directions Publishing Corp., 1999.

Return to Table of Contents.
©2007 Sisters of Charity, BVM