To say that I am a voracious UMaine hockey fan may just be a wild understatement. It breaks my heart that I am closer to UNH than I am to UMaine. While at my previous assignment, I was a season ticket holder and could be found at the rink most Friday and Saturday evenings throughout the winter. I also had the privilege of meeting and in some cases befriending many of the players, some of whom I continue to be in contact with even today. As much as I tried to get these men to come to Mass, their attendance rate was less than stellar. They did join bible studies and would show up at my house for dinner, so we did have some success in sharing the Gospel with them.

            It was one of these young men, however, who taught me one of the most important lessons I have learned. His name was Dan, and he was a goaltender. During a conversation I asked him what went through his mind when the puck got by him for a goal. I am not sure what I was expecting for an answer, but Dan simply responded, “that pucks in the net.” What he was saying was there was nothing he could do about that shot and he needed to be ready to stop the next shot. Put another way, he simply could not change the past.

            In our journey to holiness, many of us get stuck thinking about how we can fix our past. We are frustrated because we cannot get over the fact that that puck is in the net. We should have been able to stop that shot. We could have done things differently. We would have made better decisions if we knew then what we know now. Because of guilt and shame, we find ourselves constantly looking back and missing out on what is. Even when we have been faithful to attending Mass, to going to confession on a regular basis, to living and loving as Jesus calls us to live and love, we find it nearly impossible to forgive ourselves, and even more difficult to believe that God forgives and loves us.

            Satan’s most effective tool to make us his, is our past. He convicts us repeatedly and convinces us that what we have done is so heinous that even God will not forgive us. He uses the trinity of regret, “should have, could have, & would have” to convince us that we can never be all we were created to be so we should just settle for what he has to offer. It is this type of thinking that makes people think that the church will immediately collapse if they walk in, or that the priest will never have enough time to hear their confession.

            Our past is not the only thing that can get in the way of our knowing God’s love and mercy. Worrying too much about the future can also have an adverse effect on our journey. This must be why St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, writes,  “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”(2 Cor 6:2) When we get stuck in our past or worry too much about the future, we lose sight of how Jesus is in our lives at this very moment. We miss out on the grace, the help, the encouragement being offered to us by the Holy Trinity in this very moment.

            While it is indeed important to learn from our past and to prepare for our future, it is in this moment that we grow our relationship with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot undo what we have done in the past and once we have sincerely expressed our contrition, we are released from the guilt that distorts our view of God at work in our lives in this very moment. On the other hand, once we trust that God has a plan for our well-being, we are free to experience that plan in this moment.

            We are sinners and each of us could look at our past with more than a tinge of regret, but that puck is in the net. It is right now, whether we are having the best or worst moment of our lives, that we experience the abundance of grace, mercy, and love that is God’s constant gift to us. Confess the past, get ready for the future but live fully in this moment because now is the day of our salvation and Jesus is with us now.