"They forgot the God who had saved them". These words of Psalm 106 sum up a great deal of the Old Testament, for it is frequently a history of forgetting. One of the characteristics of God in the Old Testament is to remember. Could a mother forget her child? Even if she should forget, God will never forget. We are carved on the palm of God's hand. Correspondingly, it is a characteristic of humanity to forget, to forget the great things that God has done.

There is much in our lives that we should forget, for we should not forever carry the burdens of the past. We do need a healing of memories, for many of our memories are painful. Our memory also needs healing in that it is not finely enough attuned to the divine memory. While we learn to forget we must also learn to remember in a divine way. We have to learn to remember as God does. In general, what God remembers is not our human sinfulness, but His covenant, His mercy and compassion. We must remember God's mercy and compassion all the days of our life. Jesus has taught us this: "Do this in memory of me".