What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made in your life? You likely have some aspects of your past that you’d probably prefer not to think about. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about one such person: Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the Church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment.
One chapter later (in Acts 9), Saul has an encounter with Christ, and converts to the faith in a climactic fashion. We mostly think of Saul today as Paul, the incredibly influential author of many of the letters of the New Testament.
Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we can be forgiven our mistakes. Many of us tend to put “forgive” and “forget” together mentally; if you bring your family to the brink of ruination by spending the rent money on tulip bulbs, you’d likely never want to think about that incident again once you’ve received the Sacrament and realized you’d never repeat such a dumb mistake. In the case of Saul/Paul – renowned persecutor of Christians – it’d be completely understandable if he wanted to put that stage of his life behind him when he took up the cross. But he didn’t. Not only is his unsavory pre-conversion story told in Sacred Scripture, but he also refers to it in his own letters. (See Galatians 1:13-14 and Philippians 3:6.)
We all sin. We all have been forgiven our sins through the grace of baptism, through our attendance at Mass, and through Reconciliation. It’s entirely understandable to put past sins behind us, to not consider them again. This might even be the healthy and right thing to do, such as when dwelling on the past leads to depression or ill-advised thoughts.
But the stories of our past sins can also be useful to keep. They serve as a reminder – to us and others – of where we’ve come from thanks to the grace of Christ. They can serve as a warning of where we might return if we are not careful of our fallen nature. They can serve as inspiration to others: “Even someone who’s messed up as badly as I have can be forgiven.”
Scripture is rife with stories of redemption. However, the redemptive power of God did not stop with the end of the Bible. The stories of the saints are full of dramatic repentances from unsavory choices to a life of holiness; those stories continue to inspire us centuries later. Reflecting upon of our old lives can help us maintain our new lives in Christ, or help others find the courage to escape the prisons of their own sins. Regardless of which sins we wish could be forgotten forever, they probably aren’t as bad as dragging Christians out of their homes for imprisonment. Paul found refuge from his sinful past, and used the experience to help others. Perhaps we all can look for opportunities to do the same with our own failings.
