How are we called to remember life and move forward? How do we reconcile sins and failings, our own and others, in seeking communion with God and others? These questions seem very relevant today when the call to “cancel people and history” seems to be the call of the day.

My History: Each of us has our own history. We have done many things, said many things and participated in many things throughout our lives. We have family and friends, some of whom we are very proud of and others whom we may not feel the same way. We also have many memories of what we did that often are contradicted by others. It is often troubling where I remember something very clearly and my Mom or a friend will correct me with another memory of what I did or didn’t do or say at the time.
My history and history in general can become very unclear, even if it just the recent past, as memory files and places it into boxes and corners which make it easier to deal with or sometimes to ignore. Sometimes these memories can become elephants in the room perpetuating the problem and other times ways of healing a hurtful moments allowing us to deal with it while not destroying the good around it.
In the end we all become a some total of our history, the good and bad, the joyous and the sorrowful. We remember looking forward and looking back at the same time keeping the tension of life and love in a balance of seeking peace, hope and goodness.
It is in these conversation with others that the history continues to be tuned towards truth and the twisting and reimagining it into lies and half-truths are challenged and brought into the light of loving grace and healing relationships.

My Faith: Like my history, my faith is also complicated by memory. It is the balance, the tension of looking forward and looking back in seeking and knowing the presence of God in the good and the bad of my life, in the joy and the sorrows and in my sins and my blessings. I am able to deal with my sins of the past because I trust God is working with me to be the better person. It helps me to see those who have sinned against me and forgive them…seeking the better in each person. It helps me to seek forgiveness of my sins against others, confronting the hurt in the hope they will seek the better in me.
There is in three of the Gospel the Parable of the Rich Young Man three of the Gospels (Matt. 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, and Luke 18:18-23). I love this parable not because the young man is unable to give up his riches and follow Jesus but because Jesus sees him at his very best. Jesus knows what he is capable of if he will only let go of what possesses him and follow the path of goodness and truth in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the challenge of how Jesus desires me to see others…as the beloved child created in God’s image.
Like my history I can distort and bend the truth of who God is and who I am called to forgive, show mercy too, who I am called to serve, love and enter into relationship with. This is why the place of the community and Church is indispensable in helping to guide, form and correct my call to serve and believe.

And Truth: As Christians we believe the truth is founded upon the Rock of Jesus Christ…his teaching remind us to seek the best in our brothers and sisters, to not allow sin to cloud our vision of the creative goodness of God found in each one of us. It challenges us to confront the sins of our life and the life of others with grace and mercy, the invitation to a greater good.
Truth is hard…it means continually growing towards God and knowing that each of us are sinners in need of not being cancelled but healed which can only happen in the all encompassing love of God.
It may not be popular…but it is the truth.
St. Junipero Serra….pray for us.

God Bless
Fr. Mark