“We’ve Got a History”

“We’ve got a history.” Usually when someone says that, it’s not a good history. They’re not likely referring to a treasury of fond memories. No—this comment points to a problematic past with someone.

Openings for Misunderstandings

We all have many opportunities to interact with a wide variety of people. Each of us brings a potentially different worldview, value system, temperament, cultural background, and any number of other factors with us. On top of all that, at any particular time, our emotional intelligence can be a bit off.

We may be dealing with moderate to severe emotional challenges of our own, totally unrelated to the person we’re interacting with in the moment. With all of these possibilities, much can go wrong, regardless of anyone’s best intentions. Things can go from bad to worse quickly. When they do, we might end up with “a history.”

But How Do We Respond?

Even if we acknowledge that different perspectives, and problems unrelated to our interaction with any one person in particular can exist, do we follow that logic through to its conclusion? How do we react to others after what we perceive as a less-than-pleasing interaction with them?

Feeding and Watering the History

Do we hang on to the “history” we have created with someone for months or even years? There are ways we can tell if we’re keeping the “history” alive. Some clues that we’ve nourished a “history” of a problematic past might include:

• We’ve placed them in a box. We see and describe them based on their behavior in our past interactions with them. He or she is hateful. Period. End of story.
• If we hear anyone praising them for something, we either refuse to believe it or skeptically assume that it’s not reflective of who they really are. After all, we know how they really are.
• Whenever we see them, the old memories flood back over us, and we feel resentful again.
• They haven’t changed; they’ll never change.

Let’s take a look at each of these thought patterns.

Seeing Them As Their Behaviors  

When we identify someone as hateful, spiteful, greedy, disrespectful, etc., we are identifying them with their bad behavior. We are saying that they are their sin. That’s not true, though.

They may have behaved sinfully, but they, like you and I, are made in the image and likeness of God. We all, you and I included, struggle with the fallen part of our human nature. We all sin. Yet, we are not our sin. Let’s take to heart Pope St. John Paul II’s wisdom:

We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.

Refuse to Believe Anything Positive 

We might hear of some outstanding quality or attribute of the person with whom we have the “history.” When we hear it, we reject it summarily. This is closely related to the previous attitude or thought pattern. Taking this position refuses to acknowledge that we’re all a mixed bag.

We each have some qualities and traits that are more commendable than others. Every one of us has one or more good attributes or habits. Some of these may even be outstanding. Why shouldn’t we have some good habits and attributes? We’re made in God’s image. We need to remember that when we think and talk about others.

Resentment and Unforgiveness

Resentment and unforgiveness open the door to the influence of the demons. Resentment and unforgiveness create a blockage to God’s love, to His grace in us. Jesus tells us we must forgive:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15).

Of course, it doesn’t mean that forgiving someone for a wrong implies that the wrong is okay. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily will forget. But it does mean that we won’t hang onto unforgiveness and resentment, which only harms us.

They’ll Never Change

Is it true that someone will never change, or can never change? Have we ourselves changed over the months or years? Have we been blessed to become aware of a need to drop even some little bad habit and then replaced it with a good habit? Are we trying to respond to God’s grace and grow in virtue? Why can’t we believe someone else might do the same?

Consider St. Dismas, one of the thieves crucified with Jesus, and Jesus’ words to him:

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43).

As well, most of us know the story of St. Augustine of Hippo, the Doctor of Grace. His story in Confessions tells of his conversion from a life of dissipation as a young man to become one of the most important theologians of all time.

Other Amazing Examples

Alessandro Serenelli stabbed Maria Goretti 14 times in his failed attempt to rape her. St. Maria Goretti died from these wounds, but not before forgiving Alessandro. When he entered the prison to serve his sentence for this heinous crime, Serenelli was one of the most angry and meanest inmates they had. Yet, he died as a gentle member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. About ten years prior to his death at the age of 87, a letter he wrote included the following:

I hope this letter that I have written can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life.

Jacques Fesch, a young Frenchman, had grown up in a troubled household with no real moral formation. As a young man, he decided to pull off a robbery in order to buy a boat and sail away from France to Polynesia. By the time the botched robbery ended, though, he’d shot and killed a policeman. In prison, Fesch underwent a remarkable, deep conversion. Just a couple of months prior to his execution by guillotine in 1957, he wrote the following:

Here is where the cross and its mystery of suffering make their appearance. The whole of life has this piece of wood as its center. …We can have no genuine hope of peace and salvation apart from Christ crucified! Happy the man who understands this.

Here we have two criminals–two murderers. These two men converted and came to know God with a deep, intimate “heart” knowledge. Theirs are eye-opening stories.

We can find many, many more dramatic conversion stories of canonized saints. We might also be able to name one or two individuals we’ve known personally who’ve changed for the good in a big way.

Looking in the Mirror

We can find myriad examples of conversions, of true changes of heart, over the last twenty centuries. So, why do we not give our contemporaries credit for the ability to change? Maybe we simply need to maintain the story line we’ve created, in order to avoid our culpability in the “history”.

The story we’ve come to embrace and repeat keeps us comfortably in a state of victimhood. In other words, we’re avoiding the fact that we are the ones who need conversion. The person who must change looks back at us in the mirror every day. That’s not a comfortable prospect. 

Taking It to Prayer

We might benefit by taking our “history” with someone to prayer, asking the Lord for the grace to understand what He’s trying to show us. Have we, in our woundedness, made assumptions about the other—have we tried to judge their heart? If we had some sort of disagreement with them, what part did we play in the whole thing? Where’s our culpability? Are we willing to own up to our part and seek forgiveness from God and from the other?

Let’s go to prayer, and ask the Lord to help us grow in virtue. Ask Him to give us His transforming, healing grace to change our hearts, for true conversion. We can’t do it without Him and His grace. But Jesus reminds us that, with God all things are possible. (cf. Mt 19:26)

…Just as no one can cause harm to someone who is close to the king, no more can Satan do anything to us if our souls are close to God…But since we often exalt ourselves, the enemy has no difficulty in drawing our poor souls into shameful passions (The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, Benedicta Ward, SLG, 136).