Looking Back

A Reflection on the Second Reading for August 2nd, 2020:
The Solemnity of Our Lady of the Angels of Portiuncula

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Romans
8.35, 37-39

Brothers and sisters: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

Like many teens keen to experience the freedom of the open road, I enrolled in a driver’s education course as soon as I came of age. My instructor for the in-car sessions was probably just a few years older than I was, but he fancied himself both a man of the world and a bit of a clever clogs. During one lesson he directed me to change lanes, so I looked in my rear-view mirror to check for cars behind me. My eyes must have lingered longer than necessary because he said, “Take a snapshot, not a movie.”


Despite myself, I was impressed with this pithy warning — although, let’s face it, he probably said this to all the students with precisely the same air of nonchalance. Still it was, and is, good advice. Spending too much time looking in the rear-view mirror is hazardous; it distracts us from what’s happening in front of us. Take a snapshot, not a movie.


When Saint Paul, in the second reading, asks what or who will separate us from the love of Christ, he names things with which so many of us have been acquainted in body, mind, or spirit: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, or nakedness. Then he declares that not one thing “in all creation” can separate us from the love of God — not even death.


But then I think, what about the past? What about things that happened to me years — sometimes decades — ago, things that stir up within me feelings of guilt or resentment or betrayal, things that drag me down, making it hard for me to focus on what’s in front of me, things that linger in the present because I have not yet been able to free myself of them? And I have to admit, yes, they can distance me from the love of God.


Does that mean Saint Paul is wrong?


Well, no, I don’t think he is. But I have to acknowledge that although God will never take His love from me, I sometimes find myself in a state too broken and distracted to receive His love. I am looking in the rear-view mirror, reliving past hurts — done by me and to me — and I cannot see the Love that is in front of me. When this happens, it’s time to seek the healing of reconciliation.


The past has much to teach me, but I cannot spend too much time re-viewing it. The past is there for reference. Take a snapshot, not a movie.




Let us Pray:

Lord, open my heart to receive Your love, a love that makes us conquerors of everything in creation, even our brokenness. Meet me in the sacrament of reconciliation, heal my wounds with Your mercy, free me of my past and set me on the road to an ever-deepening faith. Amen.




Donna Davis

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