past on Sins in the Past

Father Greg Boyle, founder and director of Homeboy Industries in East Los Angeles, has put together a team of physicians trained to remove the tattoos of ex-gang members. The Service is crucial for th...

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

Pastor: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.   Pastor: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But with You...

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.

No matter how much the world shatters us to pieces, we carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons us.

Merciful God, in baptism you promise forgiveness and new life, making us part of the body of Christ. We confess that we remain preoccupied with ourselves, separated from one another. We cling to destr...

The birth of Jesus Christ is the nerve center of history, a kind of ganglion that connects all the fibers of mankind’s nervous system. His birth brings the past experiences (summarized in Matthew 1:1–...

One day Saint Francis and brother Leo were walking down the road. Noticing Leo was depressed, Francis turned and asked, “Leo, do you know what it means to be pure of heart?” “Of course. It means to h...

Brothers and sisters, hear the word of the Lord from the prophet Isaiah: I, even I, am he who blots out     your transgressions, for my own sake,     and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25,...

Repentance resulting from self-examination is a lifelong endeavor, occasionally surfacing in the public or private act of confession as an act of “courageous memory” in recalling one’s past.

Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.

The only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing.

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

It is not the experience of today that drives us mad; it is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday.

Hear the good news: And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of ...

“Shall we never never get rid of this Past? … It lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.”

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in God's hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past; it is possible to be sure of the future; it is possible to be diligent in the present.

In her excellent little book (Mythical Me), Richella Parham describes the importance of looking on the past with grace: Developing a redemptive memory requires recalling not only the pain of the pas...

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!  Let the dead Past bury its dead!  Act,—act in the living present!  Heart within, and God o’erhead!

In her book, Grace for the Good Girl , Emily P. Freeman charts her early years growing up in the church believing in grace but living according to the rules of perfection. One thing that would, a...

“What’s past is prologue.”

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

“No, don’t! Don’t dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye.” But the proverb goes on to say: “forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.”

“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”

The late comedian Sam Levenson enjoyed sharing funny anecdotes about his childhood, especially his early school days. One of his favorite stories was about his first day of school, when his overly pro...

When we remember the past, it is not only the past; it breaks into the present and gains a new lease on life.

..the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.