Seeing with the Eyes of Memory

The Gift of Perspective

When I caught one of the brothers at the monastery gate and asked him how he was dealing with the heat, which can be truly unbearable here — when the sun heats the walls until nightfall, and the concrete gives off the heat it has absorbed throughout the day, warming up the already scorching city — he just smiled and replied calmly that it wasn’t so bad.
“I’m from Croatia. It gets much hotter there. And besides, I now live in Zagreb, the capital, far from the sea. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s really pleasant here,” he added with unwavering cheerfulness.

Sometimes one sentence is enough to change your perspective.

Memory as the Root of Hope

Memory allows us to look at the world differently. From a different place. As if from deep within, with hope.
There is no hope without memory. Memory is to hope what light is to the observer: it allows us to see who we are, where we come from, and what has shaped us. Thanks to it, we can see the good that happens to us — even when it is hidden under a layer of everyday life that appears as impenetrable and unyielding darkness.

And yet, as the preacher, brother Allen Bernard Moran, noted, our memory can be unreliable.

Commenting on a passage from the Book of Exodus, he said:

“I would argue that the book might also be called the Book of Forgetting or the Book of Dementia. It is remarkable how many times the people forget what the Lord God has just done for them. Our passage today comes from the 16th chapter following upon the miraculous passage through the Red Sea and the destruction of their enemies — one might say their salvation — a hymn of praise to God for this great deed. The people then instantly forget about their salvation and start grumbling about their lack of good water — again God provides. In chapter 16, the people forget both of these great deeds and complain and despair once more. The Lord God in His goodness remembers them and provides for their needs.”

If our memory is to be alive and full of hope, it must be a memory full of gratitude:
It can be a memory of the good we have received ourselves. Or of the good that has happened in the history of salvation, said the preacher.

“Our daily celebration of the Eucharist is built around remembering: the anamnesis — the memory of Christ’s self-offering on the Cross, his conquering of sin and death, his resurrection, and ascension into heaven.”

The Privilege of Remembering

A chronicler has a great privilege — he can listen to many stories, see the same events through different eyes.
But this privilege of listening and seeing differently does not belong to him alone. Each of us, brothers preachers, is invited to see the world through the eyes of God through study, prayer, and the Holy Scriptures.
And to refresh our memory time and time again — the memory of how much God has already done — in our lives, in our community, in history.

And then, as the Croatian provincial noted, we can see that, in fact… things are quite good. That we are exactly where we should be. And that it’s not so hot after all.

A Museum of Gratitude

In the evening, after all the meetings and deliberations, the brothers had the opportunity to visit the museum of the Polish province, located in the monastery. It is another space where you can touch the past.
And touching the past, if it is full of gratitude, always inspires hope — that one is part of a great history, another generation of a beautiful family that has set itself the goal of proclaiming the Good News to the whole world and reminding everyone, everywhere and in every way, of God’s great works.