Memory (Remember)
- Michael Haldas
- 15 minutes ago
- 3 min read
“There was once a woman who went to church for thirty years. When she got sick, she was scared and said to her priest, “Father, have I done enough?” The priest didn’t answer her question directly. He said, “God won’t ask how many times you came to church. He will ask when was the last time you truly came to Him.” That’s the question for all of us. Not, “What have I done?” but, “Have I truly opened my heart to Christ?” Not, “Am I on the church list?” but, “Is my name written in the Book of Life?” Not “do I think I am a good Christian?” But “does God see me as His own?” And if we are not sure, it is not too late to begin again. Not with rules. Not with pride. But with one simple prayer, whispered with tears: “Lord, remember me.” (Savva Tống)
“The theme of remembrance of God is a common trope in patristic literature…This does not mean what is commonly understood by memory today, where we conjure up images of a past event or some useful information. Rather, it means to immerse the conscious mind in the presence of God, to become aware of His presence within the moment.” (Fr. Joseph Lucas)
“When God lays a man to rest, then he is at rest. When God remembers a man, then he exists. Therefore, we say: “May his memory be eternal.” God will remember you eternally. Only God glorifies man. And if God glorifies a man, then he will be glorified forever. Whatever God says has value, my dears—not what people, newspapers, TV, or anyone else says. All that’s a smokescreen. God will have the last word about every man, and it will be an eternal word…The “memory” we pray about is not the memory of living Christians; we are not asking God to make sure people on earth never forget about the person. After all, the living eventually forget most humans who have ever lived. Rather, only God has an eternal memory, and we ask Him to remember us and our departed. His memory of us is therefore seen, in a sense, as sustaining us so that we will never be subject to oblivion in the dark underworld.” (Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)
“Human memory comes and goes because it is a created memory. When we pray as the Church that someone’s memory may be eternal, we do not mean that this person should live on in our own human memory because this would have little meaning since human memory, being created, passes away. We mean that this person lives on in the memory of God. Only what exists in the thought of God, really exists. When God pronounces the terrible words, “I do not know you” (Mt. 25:12), the consequences are not psychological but ontological; so also when He says I will remember their sins no more” (Heb. 8: 12; 10: 17), the consequences are of ontological significance for those particular sins…We are truly alive only to the degree that God will remember us and will ultimately give us “substance” (hypostasis) in the Kingdom of His Son.” (Metropolitan John Zizioulas)
“The received word of God, sown into the depth of the heart, begins its secret work, like leaven in dough. However, that which was heard once before must be constantly repeated. Such is the nature of Man. He is prone to forget the most important things. It is amazing, for example, that it is part of our nature to always forget that we are going to die. If we remembered this always, then we would have lived differently. Also, awareness of the fact that God sees all our deeds, and even our innermost thoughts is constantly disappearing from our memory. If we remember this, the number of our sins would be drastically reduced!” (Sergei Komarov)
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