People have different types of memory. Some speak of auditory memory, because they identify better what they hear than what they see; others of visual memory, because it is through sight that they fix the events of their life; others, we simply say that we have a good memory, because we can recite poetry or sing learned songs.

How do we take advantage of this memory?  In moments of difficulty, many times we can recite poems, prayers and songs, however, it seems that despair does not leave us, grief wins the battle and we feel alone.

The memory that would serve us in these circumstances is that of the heart. The one that retains the emotions awakened by a sunny dawn, after a stormy night; the one that generated the tender embrace that a loved one gave us, after a time of not seeing him or her; the one that inspired a compassionate and clement look before a mistake or offense on our part; the one that fixed a tender and warm smile from someone who thanked us for our presence.

When the storm increases, or we are in difficulties, or we are going through moments of sadness, we tend to fall into a double-pronged temptation that pricks us and makes us lose our enthusiasm. The first is to “let ourselves be convinced that this is our only reality and that everything is negative and will continue to be so”. The second is to “lose the memory of moments of comfort and joy, good encounters, people who have brought us peace, a task well done”. Everything is focused and centered on the difficulties that stain everything and gain our attention.

To remember is to go back through the heart. It is to relive the events, to bring them back to the heart, to relive the sensations, emotions and feelings that came alive in us in those moments of joy and peace. There was the Lord, embracing us!

The enemy of human nature, as St. Ignatius called the evil spirit, as soon as a difficulty arises in our lives, seeks to darken our hearts, so that we do not see, hear or feel anything beyond the present inconveniences. It is there, that it will help us to make the effort to “re-member” the moments of light, peace, joy, hope, the gestures of love given and received, in short, the times that the Lord embraced us and did us so much good. 

To stop, to take perspective, to go back through the heart and to reread helps to put the events in their place, to measure them in their right measure and to ponder them in their value.

If you want to go deeper into the practice of rereading take the entry Practice of rereading The Way of the Heart in books 1 to 9 (link to the platform).

Bettina Raed

International Coordinator of The Way of the Heart