So often in our discussions about the Thomas More Centre and our exploration of contemporary ways to refresh it for the future, we bump into memories of events and inspirational figures from the past.

Some of these figures are vividly alive through their words and example, while others serve as friends and teachers whose wisdom is carried on through what G.K. Chesterton called the “democracy of the dead” – tradition.

These recollections of great names and ideas from our history do not imply that we are backward-looking or reactionary. Those who joined us for our TMC Live session last week will have become aware that apart from me, how youthful and lively are the minds at work on such projects as the TMC YouTube channel and the youth formation projects.

Bringing the past to the table for the TMC is really an occasion for a humble awareness of the universal human experience rather than rosy-lensed nostalgia. The table conversation is more vibrant than static because of it. We are also grateful for the history and for the sturdy and well-formed shoulders that have given us a platform from which to see ahead past the confusion, exhaustion and fragmentation of our times.

On this feast of the great literary pioneer and Doctor of the Church, St Augustine of Hippo, it is well to invoke his rich appreciation of memory reflected in all his writings but particularly in his Confessions.

"Great is the power of memory, an awe-inspiring mystery, my God, a power of profound and infinite multiplicity … So great is the power of memory, so great is the force of it in human beings whose life is mortal." (Confessions, X.17.26)

St Augustine saw the memory as a vast reservoir of personal imagination, experience, forms, symbols and a way of recollecting and centering scattered parts of the person. For him, memory is an important power of the spiritual animus – which collaborates in an important way along with the intellect and will.

For Augustine too, memory reminds us of our origins in the will and design of God, our source and our end. He finds that memory allows him to question God and to reflect upon the clues to His presence along the road of life. Augustine compels himself to face times when he was an ingrate, who brushed past God drawn by some lesser love.

Memory tells us we are not entirely self-made men or women, but creatures as well as sons and daughters of Eternal Wisdom.

One other important aspect of memory in Augustine’s thought is that memory is a source of healing and conversion. Memory needs redemption and the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Confessions, Augustine sometimes imagines memories to be like chaotic swarms of tiny bats, released from a dark and cobwebby attic. Some are distractions and in need of the order of reality.

There is no salvation in false, contaminated or fabricated memories – they need to be touched by God’s boundless love and care. It also reminded Augustine on his road to daily conversion to Christ, that his memory was part of a more collective memory, assisted by those heroes and heroines of prayer and faith including his persistent mother St Monica, St Anthony of the Desert and of his teacher St Ambrose.

Augustine was then converted to turn his many gifts outwards in the service of the Gospel and his brothers and sisters. Pope Benedict XVI writes of this turn from the ego using Augustine’s own words:

"To preach continuously, discuss, reiterate, edify, be at the disposal of everyone – it is an enormous responsibility, a great weight, an immense effort" (Sermon, 339, 4). But he took this weight upon himself, understanding that it was exactly in this way that he could be closer to Christ. To understand that one reaches others with simplicity and humility was his true second conversion."

Augustine’s experiences of memory and belonging, knowledge and relationship do speak afresh to many of the younger generations who are drawn to an imaginative and sometimes argumentative recovery of Christian tradition in education, liturgy, literature and culture.

At the Thomas More Centre, we also aim to understand and explore memory humbly and wisely with a keen and critical eye to the present and a sense of service and good will, so that we face the future with hope.

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre