Our memories are our own, and we cannot blame anything or anyone in the past for any pain dwelling there. If we open the door to them or keep hashing over past incidents in our minds, we have only ourselves to blame.
Interpretation
We are responsible for our memories and the emotions they evoke, and we should not hold others accountable for our past pain.
This quote by Mother Angelica emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility in how we handle our memories and the emotions tied to them. It suggests that rather than blaming others for our pain, we must acknowledge that our responses to memories are within our control, and by dwelling on the past, we only harm ourselves further.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming personal struggles.
I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.
I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.
The sinner who suddenly realizes God's love for him and then looks at his rejection of that love feels a loss similar to the death of a loved one. A deep void is created in the soul and a loneliness akin to the agony of death.
Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.
Love has been defined, analyzed, explained and excused. It has been the cause of wars, feuds, heroism, martyrdom, inordinate passion, and beautiful friendships. It pulls two people of opposite temperaments together into a married state and permits them to live happily. It makes friends understand each other without the necessity of words.
Our lack of forgiveness makes us hate, and our lack of compassion makes us hard-hearted. Pride in our hearts makes us resentful and keeps our memory in a constant whirlwind of passion and self-pity.
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive.
I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.
...I returned to walking up the mountain, and there, in the dim asexual beauty of reddening dawns and skies that firmed to blue, I discovered my real and appropriate strengths.
O Divine Providence, I ask not for more riches but more wisdom with which to make wiser use of the riches you gave me at birth, consisting in the power to control and direct my own mind to whatever ends I might desire.
God has bestowed upon you intelligence and knowledge. Do not extinguish the lamp of Divine Grace and do not let the candle of wisdom die out in the darkness of lust and error. For a wise man approaches with his torch to light up the path of mankind.
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