What Do You Want to Be Remembered For?

Patti Maguire Armstrong ponders what she's learned about humility and holy forgetfulness.

What do you want to be remembered for? It’s not unusual for a mother to want to be remembered by the people she loves, but that is more about love than ego. Our love can last forever, right? If, however, we want to be famous and have some monument constructed or a biography written about us, then we are living for the world—and when we die, that will be of no avail.

In November 2001, when I heard on the news that former Beatle George Harrison died, it flashed across my mind that now he was no different than a cleaning woman; perhaps even lower. God sees only our soul, so the rich and famous have no advantages before God. Only their love and service for him and others will matter. That sudden thought—that now George Harrison’s fame is for nothing—impressed upon me how the world’s opinion of us counts for nothing.

Father John Riccardo

A few years ago, during his “Christ is the Answer” radio show, Fr. John Riccardo mentioned that he was once asked what he wanted to be remembered for. “I don’t want to be remembered for anything,” he said.

Then, he asked how many people even know the maiden name of their great-grandmothers. Most of us are simply not remembered at all, he pointed out. Instead, Fr. Riccardo said he wants Jesus to be remembered.

“Jesus is the one that matters; not me,” he said. Living to bring Jesus to others, not impressing them with ourselves, is what makes a life worthwhile, according to him.

Holy Forgetfulness

I attended a retreat once where the priest talked about the focus of self as being the problem behind pride. He presented pride as not just thinking you are better than others, but the preoccupation with self. “Humility only comes in self-forgetting, when I am not at the center,” he explained. “Christ lowered himself for us because love requires self-emptying. His death is the model of humility because he did not do it for himself. Christ did not die in our place to show us how great he was, but he did it to show us how great his love was for us and through it, he did show us his greatness.”

The priest described humility as elusive, as something that can only be achieved by abandoning it. “If we focus on it, praying: ‘Lord, make me a humble man’ and then we serve others all the while looking inward, the more we focus on it the less likely we are achieving it. Inward concern about my humility contradicts the entire process.” He explained that in the end, “Doing everything you can to make yourself humble, makes it all about you.”

So even lowering yourself by saying, “Oh, I’m not so great,” or “they are better than me,” is still self-focused. Holy forgetfulness is when we think about others: serving them out of love rather than doing it for ourselves.

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Holy forgetfulness is when we think about others: serving them out of love rather than doing it for ourselves. #catholicmom

The messages from both priests give us a spiritual freedom. We don’t have to create a legacy for ourselves. We don’t need to work to inflate people’s opinions of us or try to convince anyone that we are important. Jesus is the important one. Through holy forgetfulness, we can rest in the spirit, love Jesus and love others, then act accordingly, not worrying about ourselves. And the funny thing is, those are the people that are usually remembered fondly, for being about love.

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