Memory, Identity, and the Workings of Providence

This past Sunday, the 18th Sunday of the Year, I sang the proper offertory chant from the Roman Gradual, "Precatus est Moyses" (Ex. 32:11-14), in which Moses prays to the LORD to remember the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to turn back His wrath from the Israelites, who in their impatience and lack of faith, had erected the Golden Calf to worship.

This beautiful chant inspired me to sit down and write a little about the phenomenon of memory. I have been meditating upon memory rather deeply this year, as I have been confronting my past more deeply than ever before over the course of the past several months. How does one address painful memories, or perhaps pleasant memories of days gone by and not to be relived?

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Recovering alcoholics recounting their stories often speak of having a "built-in forgetter"; the insanity of alcoholism is the tendency to dismiss the ill effects of alcoholism, and, after a period of abstinence, to become convinced that it is once again "safe" to start drinking.

Likewise, many of us have, in the course of our drinking, experienced blackouts (periods where we do not remember doing or saying things). I suffered from terrors upon waking up and being unable to remember where I'd been the night before, and what I'd been doing. What if I had said or done something that hurt a friend, or caused embarrassment at work, or even committed a crime?

Near the end, I would periodically call friends the next day to fish around for clues; I would ask innocent-sounding questions such as "did you have fun last night?" in order to elicit information about my own behavior. I was too frightened and embarrassed to ask people directly "how was I last night?"

Now, almost nine years later, I find myself remembering things long buried, while at the same time finding it is difficult to remember many things from the 14 or so years that I drank. I can remember certain events with great clarity, but the rest of the time is an impressionistic wash of illness, remorse, fear, loneliness, hangovers, vomiting, and blinding sunlight pouring through the unshaded windows of my messy little Harlem studio apartment. There were heartaches, lost wallets, cab rides with strangers, ill-starred affairs, a terrorist attack, Sunday night baths with whiskey and menthol cigarettes while listening to Mozart piano sonatas, Schubert lieder, or Beethoven symphonies.

My dissipation showed itself in what I read, histories and biographies from that worst of all periods, the late 18th Century, in which decadent and debased men such as Giacomo Casanova went about Europe carousing and seducing, leaving despair and ruin in their midst. Soon, I knew, the party would end for him and for his like; the horrific conflagration of the French Revolution hung in my consciousness at the time, with its spiraling madness and violence. Even then, perhaps, I sensed the impending end of my own party; reading those books and seeing the horrifying historical result of man's quest for Enlightenment on his own terms, absent any consideration other than exertion of force and scientific rationalism, I sensed through the smoke blowing uptown from Ground Zero my own mortality.

Somewhere in the midst of that I became a religious man. Not a churchgoer, not yet, but I met God in the music of men who loved Him and sought to walk in His ways. In the midst of the bleakness of alcoholism and Enlightenment philosophy and history I found consolation in listening to J.S. Bach and Joseph Haydn. I fell asleep every night listening to Bach's 2nd Partita for Solo violin. At times when I was tempted to jump in front of a subway train, I remembered that I would never get to hear Bach again, and so I stepped back from the platform edge.

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In Purgatorio, the second volume of Dante's Divine Comedy, the penitent sinner reaches the Garden of Eden at the summit of Purgatory, and is washed first in the waters of the River Lethe (which causes him to forget the now purgated sins he committed in earthly life), after which he drinks of the River Eunoe, which restore and strengthen his memory of his life's good deeds, all in preparation for his entry into Heaven.

It is worth noting that Dante places the full healing of memory at the top of Purgatory, long after earthly death and the long process of atonement for one's sins. Setting aside dementia, injury, or some other illness that affects one's mental faculties, it is in man's nature to remember, to carry with him through his life memories of events both good and bad. Why would that be? How does one reconcile God's love with the burden of painful memories?

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God doesn't erase our memories because they help to constitute us as individuals, and His creatures whom He loves. Rather than blot out our memories of injuries, heartbreaks, and sins we've endured and committed, God forgives us our offenses and preserves the memory so that we might recall the love He has for us.

The Christian faith, like the Jewish faith that it fulfills and onto which it is grafted, is based in many ways upon the practice of active memory or recollection. At every Mass, we hear the words of Jesus at the consecration, when He tells His Church to "do this [celebrate the Eucharist] in memory of me." On Ash Wednesday, at the imposition of ashes on our foreheads, we are instructed, "Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Likewise, the Exultet and readings at the Easter Vigil remind us of all the things God has done for us in creating the world, in choosing Abraham to become father of a vast nation, of leading the Israelites through the Red Sea and out of Egypt, and finally, in giving us His only Son as a perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of all our sins.

In recalling these things, we draw upon the tradition of active memory that is given to the Jewish people in such places as Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ("Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD..."), the prayer of Moses referenced above (Ex. 32:11-14), the Psalms (e.g. Ps. 132, "Remember, O LORD, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured..."), and in a profound and extended way, the Historical books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah), as well as the extended narrative of patriarchs, kings, and prophets recounted in Sirach 44-50 ("Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations.").

It is remarkable to note the amount of writings dedicated to the history of God's people; the stories recount not only the deeds of heroes and holy men and women, but also those of wicked figures who lead the people away from God and into abomination, disgrace, persecution, exile, and catastrophe. And yet, through it all, God remains faithful to His covenant. The stories become not only cautionary tales, but testimonies to God's love and forgiveness.

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And so it is for individuals now, today. Our memories become tamed by the forgiveness that is given to us freely through God's grace. We can look at the memories of past sins and give thanks for having been forgiven, as St. Bernard observes. In recalling God's providence and forgiveness, the times that we stumble can only lead us to love Him more, as we see not how far we fell, but how far He raised us up again.