by Jenny Klejeski
My family’s propensity to quote movies is like a second language. For any given situation, we are quick to respond with an apropos quote or lyric. It’s a habit, an automatic response; we see something that reminds us of a situation in a movie or TV show, and the next thing out of our mouth are the words of some character. I’ve come to learn that this phenomenon is not unique to my family, but seems to be a cultural thing. Quotability is a laudable quality in movies and TV shows. I’m amazed when I stop to reflect on just how influential these silly little phrases and scenes that I’ve committed to memory determine the way I view and react to situations.
Given the important role that memory plays in how we view and respond to the world, it surprises me how much of a bad rap that memorization gets in our educational system. At best it’s considered a tedious nuisance, and at worst it’s warned against as an obstacle to true education. There are, I think, a number of reasons for this attitude toward memorization. As Rob mentioned last week, one possible reason is that we live in the age of smartphones where the information we need is often just a Google search away. Another reason for this mistrust of memorization is our (justifiable) aversion toward an educational model that simply requires the memorization of facts without sufficient explanation of them. In the realm of religious education, we might think of the pre-Vatican II catechesis which consisted largely of memorizing the Baltimore Catechism, perhaps with little exposition of the meaning of the passages.1
While this skepticism is understandable (and can even be healthy), I would like to take a countercultural stance (surprise!) and argue that memorization is an essential part of theology2 and that we should all do it. In fact, I propose memorization as one remedy for a major crisis facing the Christian Church today: the lack of a theological imagination.3 Our theological imagination is, in short, our capacity to contemplate the mysteries of God, to view the world as sacramental, to be able to entertain a paradox.4 The modern world is rife with enemies toward this religious sense. To name a few, think of our esteem of instant gratification, our desire—or even need—for constant stimulation, our numbness to the pornification of culture, and our devolution of love to an abstraction. All of these things wound our sense of wonder and our ability to see and encounter God in the world around us, in short because they cause us to settle for less.5
So, why memorization as an antidote? Again, as Rob so eloquently wrote last week, theology is about learning how to see; it is a mode of viewing the world. If the things we commit to memory (e.g. pithy one-liners from movies) shape the way we see and interact with the world, think of the impact it would have to commit prayer and Scripture to memory. I think of the writings of Augustine, for example, and how he seamlessly intertwines his own reflections with the words of Scripture; it’s difficult to tell where one ends and another begins, and I can’t help but think that’s just how he saw the world. By internalizing the words, phrases, and images of our tradition—even without necessarily understanding or appreciating them at first—we are given a new language, a new grammar with which we can express our heart’s deepest longing. The truth, beauty, and goodness contained in our tradition’s texts can serve as a rubric by which to evaluate the world around us. The memory is not simply an inactive storehouse in our brains, but rather is something that shapes the way we think and act and speak (and, in fact, enables these functions). Every input has an output.
Perhaps an objection to memorization is that we needn’t burden ourselves with the specifics of memorizing a text. Isn’t it good enough that we have the general idea of a passage?
To that I would respond: the mysteries that we contemplate are not abstractions or nice ideas, but are, in fact, realized in the particularities of life. After all, the God of Christianity does not come as a gnostic teller of enlightened truths, but—scandalously—as an incarnate man, a man with a father and mother, a hometown, an occupation, etc. And Christ Himself commands that we remember. In fact, the very source and summit of our Faith is based on an act of making-present-through-remembering (anamnesis). And this act of remembering is not the evoking of a nice feeling or an abstract idea; it’s the doing of specific actions and the speaking of specific words of the Word.
Another common argument against memorization (particularly in education) is that memorizing a text conveys only a surface-level knowledge; students are only learning words, but don’t have an understanding of what the words mean (again, think of the critique of pre-Vatican II catechesis). I agree that it is essential to understand the why that accompanies the what,6 but the why need not always be so immediate. Even Christ, at times, allowed His disciples to remain in the dark about what His words meant.7 The act of memorization is akin to planting seeds that may blossom at a later time. Think of something you had to learn in school that you didn’t understand at first (certain math facts or how to diagram a sentence, perhaps) and the glory of the subsequent lightbulb-going-on-moment. And if this can happen for other types of knowledge, how much more so for the living Word of God!
In Catechesi Tradendae (1979), John Paul II wrote, “The blossoms, if we may call them that, of faith and piety do not grow in the desert places of a memoryless catechesis” (§55). He cites memory (in addition to gradual understanding and the context of a faith community) as a vital ingredient to our growth in faith.
Having the words of our Tradition committed to memory can allow for a word of Scripture to come to you in a dark moment. It can allow for you to speak God’s healing to someone who’s been placed in your path and needs to hear it. It can allow for a enigmatic passage to be suddenly illuminated by some experience or encounter.
In my appeal to memorization, however, I must offer a caveat. Namely this: committing Scripture to memory should always serve the end of contemplation, i.e. gazing upon the sacred. It should never be taken up for a utilitarian or self-serving purpose. I’m thinking in particular here of using Scripture simply to win arguments and not hearts.8
With all this in mind, I’d like to issue a challenge (perhaps you can take it up as a New Year’s resolution or plan ahead for Lent). This year, resolve to commit prayers and Scriptures to memory—a different passage every month, perhaps. To assist you with this task, the writers of The Restless Hearts have compiled some of our favorite prayers and verses (some longer, some shorter). Go at a comfortable pace; If a given passage seems too long, break it up and learn another section each week, or choose one line that speaks to you. Post it on your bathroom mirror, your nightstand, your office wall. Pray it in the morning and at night. Let the words sink into your consciousness. Plant the seeds of contemplation and see what God will do with them.
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.”9
Having the words of our Tradition committed to memory can allow for a word of Scripture to come to you in a dark moment. It can allow for you to speak God’s healing to someone who’s been placed in your path and needs to hear it. It can allow for a enigmatic passage to be suddenly illuminated by some experience or encounter.
In my appeal to memorization, however, I must offer a caveat. Namely this: committing Scripture to memory should always serve the end of contemplation, i.e. gazing upon the sacred. It should never be taken up for a utilitarian or self-serving purpose. I’m thinking in particular here of using Scripture simply to win arguments and not hearts.8
With all this in mind, I’d like to issue a challenge (perhaps you can take it up as a New Year’s resolution or plan ahead for Lent). This year, resolve to commit prayers and Scriptures to memory—a different passage every month, perhaps. To assist you with this task, the writers of The Restless Hearts have compiled some of our favorite prayers and verses (some longer, some shorter). Go at a comfortable pace; If a given passage seems too long, break it up and learn another section each week, or choose one line that speaks to you. Post it on your bathroom mirror, your nightstand, your office wall. Pray it in the morning and at night. Let the words sink into your consciousness. Plant the seeds of contemplation and see what God will do with them.
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.”9
1 To be clear, I’m neither ripping on the Baltimore Catechism, nor endorsing a memorization-without-understanding catechesis. I think there are strengths and weaknesses in both pre- and post-Vatican II catechesis. The problem with all education trends is that they tend to mimic a pendulum (e.g. heavy memorization of content with little link to our experience vs. heavy emphasis on experience with little content), and I’m over here like http://bzfd.it/1pbLeqo.↩
2 Again, as Rob pointed out last week, “doing theology” is not merely an academic study, but is encountering God in “the same old boring crap that is always around us.”↩
3 To give credit where it’s due, this idea is one proposed by Dr. John Cavadini who has said, “memorization is healing for the imagination.”↩
4 To be clear, theological imagination encompasses much more than that, but for the purposes of this post, that should be a sufficient explanation.↩
5 Our resident Lewis expert, Rob, pointed me to this quote from Lewis’ Weight of Glory: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”↩
6 Theology is, after all, faith seeking understanding.↩
7 See: Luke 18:34, Mark 9:32, Luke 2:50, Luke 9:45, John 12:16, et al↩
8 St. Therese puts it well: “It is far better to talk to God than to talk about Him, for there is so much self love intermingled with spiritual conversations.”↩
9 First stanza of the Suscipe Prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola↩
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