Thinking about remembrance

November is a month characterised by remembering. Most obviously, on 11 November we remember ‘the war to end all wars’, the Great War fought between 1914 and 1918. We even call the day ‘Remembrance Sunday’.

         We remember the Saints of the Church on Thursday 1 November, on All Saints’ Day; and then on All Souls’ Day, on Friday 2 November, we remember those we have loved who have passed from this world to the next. We also call this last-named festival ‘The commemoration of the faithful departed’.

 To the ancient world of Jesus’ time, the word ‘remember’ never meant a mere process of bringing something to mind. That was deemed insufficient. The requirement was to re-member by which they meant ‘put back together’, to ‘reverse the process of dis-membering’. The whole point of remembering was to mend something in order to bring it back to life.

      This month, as we remember saints and loved ones and the dead from a great many wars, we need to move from merely bringing them to mind and actually learn from the past. That way, we will move away from the destructive forces that causes war and death, and work more constructively toward goodness.

      Re-membering of this kind requires humility and strength, a willing-ness to acknowledge the mistakes of the past, and a determination to learn from them. Then we can engineer a future worth having. In fact, it requires Christlikeness.