Remember your mercies, O Lord,” says the psalmist. If you think about it, it’s kind of strange to be reminding God of his covenant to us, his promise of mercy. Our faith has unwaveringly taught that God is unchanging and that his love endures forever. Perhaps it is not so much that we need to remind God about his enduring love for us, but we must remind ourselves. We often forget God’s love because we get so wrapped up in ourselves and our daily lives—our day-to-day tasks, our struggles, our triumphs. But we cannot let ourselves be fooled into thinking that the love of God is not worth remembering. The evil spirit is really good at exploiting our tendency to forget by keeping our minds and hearts pointed toward ourselves.
The gift of remembering is one of the graces of the Ignatian examen. When we remember the love of God in our daily lives, we overcome the evil spirit’s tactics to make us forget. Let us pray with a sincere heart, “We remember your mercies, O Lord.”
—James Antonio, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic of the Oregon Province, is currently studying philosophy at St. Louis University. He lives at the Bellarmine House of Studies in St. Louis.