Going Down Memory Lane

Reflection on Today's Readings, Friday of 19th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1, August 13th, 2021
Texts: Josh. 24:1-13; Ps. 136:1-3.16-18.21-22.24; Mtt. 19:3-12
Today's Readings remind us of the need to keep the memory of our history alive. The loss of sense of history leads to loss of identity. In today's gospel reading, Jesus' response to the question asked by the pharisees shows that divorce resulted from loss of sense of history. It is said, "He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? ... He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." When we keep the sense of history alive, we will know our identity, we will know the truth about our values. The people entertained divorce because they had no sense of history of marriage. Before God there is no divorce and for this reason it is said, "whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.” The divorce only exists in the mind of man, not in the plan of God. Hence, it is said,  “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."
Whenever we lose sense of history, we are set adrift, driven by our own whims and caprices, tossing around by the wind of desires and tides of the sea of life. The word original, which means the real, the truth, is from the word 'origin', which means the beginning. A saying goes thus: "Any river that forgets its origin will run dry." This means to be real, to be true, to be alive, we have to stay with what was obtainable in the beginning. It is history that links us with the origin.
Today's first reading takes the people back to their origin; God reminded the people of their history. Today we are invited to recall our own history, the history of our salvation. The history of the people reveals their divine choice, their inheritance promised by God and how God was faithful to fulfill his promise through signs and wonders. Reviewing their history, God was trying to make them realise how much He loved them and still loves them. In our own history of salvation, we could see how much God loved us in sending His only-begotten Son to suffer, die and rise from the dead for our sake. We could see His love during baptism when He justifies us and at confessional when He forgives us our sins. We could feel His love when He feeds us with His body.
We can go memory lane to see how we receive the faith. For those of us, who were born into the faith, we have to know how the faith came to our fathers and their condition then. Without history we cannot make sense out of the present. If we can remember how the faith came to our fathers, we will appreciate the faith we have, we will know that it is nothing but the truth. Some people laid down their lives for the gospel, that it might get to us, that we might benefit from it and be saved. Some of us were born into the faith but far away from God and yet a day came and the mercy of God drew us close. We are invited today to go down memory lane to discover the love of God, that we might stay on the right path and never go astray.

Lord our God, grant that we may discover Your love anew everyday, that we might stay with You always. Amen

Fr. Andrew  Olowomuke