Looking Forward as a Spiritual Practice

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 25, 2017

“O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP Solemn Collect for Good Friday and Ordinations, emphasis added)

One of the comments I have heard repeatedly about our newly invigorated youth acolyte program is, “I am so happy to see the young people take a more active role in church.  I feel their energy and it makes me feel more energetic.”   Given our generally aging demographic at Trinity, being in touch with people whose futures and lives lie ahead of them with wondering expectation is indeed energizing. 

We are often ridden and plagued by the past.  If we have unresolved issues in relationships or failings in our lives that we have not yet amended, the past can cast a long shadow and be a burden.   If the inevitable decline brought on by elder years has constrained us and limited our choices and activities, the past can be the source of regret for things lost. 

But this need not be so.  Thankfulness and enjoying the things we are still able to do drives out regret for things lost.  Active reconciliation helps mend relations; confession and active amendment drives away guilt and shame.   Focusing on the present and even looking to the future exorcize the haunting specter of too much past and too little future.

C.S. Lewis wrote this in a private letter in 1961: 

“We must beware of the Past, mustn’t we? I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us. Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past. Not so the saved. This is one of the dangers of being, like you and me, old. There’s so much past, now, isn’t there? And so little else. But we must try very hard not to keep on endlessly chewing the cud. We must look forward more eagerly to sloughing that old skin off forever—metaphors getting a bit mixed here, but you know what I mean” (from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. III). 

St. Paul says that our trust in the resurrection of our Lord is the ultimate cure to any sense of futility we may have due to an unhealthy relationship with our past: 

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  … [T]hanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!  Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:51-58, emphasis added). 

Grace and Peace. 

--Fr. Tony+