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.
Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked.
Don't fall into the trap of studying the Bible without doing what it says.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.
Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.
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