Nov. 23, 2021
I chuckle to myself because St. Peter sounds like a nagging wife. ‘… though you know them’ might be, “You know the trash has to be at the curb by 9 a.m.!”
He is, of course, referring to knowledge, tolerance, temperance, patience, Godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity from verses 5-7 of yesterday’s reading. He states that he will always put us in remembrance of these things because he knows human nature. Unless it’s in our faces every day, we’re apt to forget what’s important – like that doctor’s appointment; we only have them (I hope!) once in awhile and there’s so much going on in our lives we forget about the things that are outside of our usual routine.
It can be compared to studying for exams (something I seem never to have gotten over); ‘say it, read it, write it – remember it’. If you say something out loud, you tend to remember it; if you then read it, you reinforce your memory of the thing, and when you write it, it becomes a full-blown memory that can be called upon long after the exam. The sticky note is a good idea because you read the words and definitions, wrote them down, and can read them from the visor as you start the car in the morning – out loud, of course. Don’t worry, folks will just think you’re talking on your ‘hands free’.
Then, when the time comes and St. Peter meets you at the Pearly Gates, you can give him the ‘passwords’. Maybe our sticky notes will be the only thing we can take with us when we go.
Words on the Word 