In a Chinese restaurant, my friends and I were offered the customary fortune cookie after a hearty meal. I don’t believe in them, but for the fun of it, I took one and broke it. Inside, there was a slip of paper that said, “To remember is to understand.” I just tried to reflect on that fortune cookie statement, “To remember is to understand.”
Perhaps there are so many things now that we cannot understand because we are also becoming more and more forgetful. If parents remember the time when they were children, perhaps they would be able to understand their children more now. If bishops will remember how they were as priests, perhaps the bishops would be more understanding towards priests. If teachers would remember how they were as students once upon a time, they will also understand how students are right now. If married people will remember how it was before they got married, they will understand what is going on right now. If sisters will remember how they were when they were novices, they will understand the novices right now.
When we cannot understand, it is most probably because we can no longer remember or we shut down our capacity to remember. If we cannot understand why Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who are weeping, blessed are those who are hungry,” it is perhaps because we have failed to remember that Jesus Himself became poor, suffered hunger, and wept alone. On account of the fact that Jesus was hungry and He wept and He suffered, our being hungry and thirsty becomes blessed. Because of Jesus’ suffering, our suffering becomes a blessed situation because God Himself sanctified it with His presence.
God gave us the power to remember, and right now we will remember again what Jesus did at the Last Supper. When we fail to remember or refuse to remember, we also become narrow-minded, shortsighted, impatient, and tend to cry in exasperation, “I cannot understand.” Can we really not understand, or are we just refusing to remember?
TO REMEMBER IS TO UNDERSTAND
Lk 8:9-10
Love Like Jesus
