Allegories

In the early years of World War II, fighter planes would come back from battle with bullet holes. The Allies noticed the areas that were most commonly hit by enemy fire. They sought to strengthen the most commonly damaged parts of the planes to reduce the number that were shot down. A mathematician, Abraham Wald, pointed out that perhaps there was another way to look at the data. Perhaps the reason certain areas of the planes weren't covered in bullet holes was that planes that were shot in those areas did not return. This insight led to the armor being reinforced on the parts of the plane where there were no bullet holes.

A man rode up to the US border on his motorcycle with two large bags on his shoulders. The border guard stopped him and asked, “What's in the bags?” The man replied that the bags were full of sand, but the guard didn't believe him. The guard detained the man and ripped open the bags which revealed nothing but sand. He even had the sand analyzed, only to find that it really was just sand. Two days later, the same thing happened. And then it happened again, two days after that. Every time, the guy on the motorcycle had nothing but sand. This went on for years. It drove the border guard crazy and he eventually lost his job. One day, he tracked down the man and said to him: “I’m no longer a border guard, but I have to know. What were you smuggling? Because I know you were smuggling something.” The man smiled at him and said: “Motorcycles!”

The devil appeared to three monks and said to them: "If I gave you the power to change something in the past, what would you change?" The first of them, with great apostolic fervor, replied: "I would like to prevent you from leading Adam and Eve to sin, so that humanity does not separate from God." The second, a man full of mercy, said to him: "I will prevent you from straying from God and condemning you forever." The third of them was the simplest and instead of answering the tempter, he knelt down, made the sign of the cross, and prayed: "Lord, deliver me from the temptation of what might have been and what was not." The demon, screaming and trembling with pain, fled.

The other two were surprised and said to him: "Brother, why did you react like this?" And he answered them: “First, we should never talk to the enemy. Secondly, no one in the world has the power to change the past. Third: Satan’s interest was not to prove our virtue, but to trap us in the past, so that we neglect the present, the only time God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with Him to fulfill His will.”

Of all the demons, the one that most holds men back and prevents them from being happy is “what could have been and was not.” The past is left to the mercy of God and the future to His providence. Only the present is in our hands. Live today, loving God with all your heart.