"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof," writes St. Paul to the Romans. In other words, we should pray to God day and night that He may deliver us from the destructive passion of self-love: the inordinate desire to please ourselves above all else, to satisfy at all costs the desires of the flesh, rather than striving to please God alone, willingly sacrificing the fulfillment of our own carnal desires for the sake of our love for Christ and our fellow man--our neighbor.
It is often said by those who have been offended: "I can forgive that person... but I can never forget." Now what, precisely, does this mean? In what sense can we claim to have forgiven someone their offences (real or imagined) against us, when we cannot set aside the remembrance of wrongs? This is nonsense!
When the Prodigal Son "came to himself" and returned home, begging his father's forgiveness, the father does not say: "I do forgive you and welcome you back, though I cannot quite forget the foolish things you have done...." In fact, he simply ignores his son's plea that he be reckoned henceforth as a hired servant. Rather, he sets aside any remembrance of his son's misdeeds and embraces him with love, restoring to him the tokens of his inheritance and ordering that a great feast be made.
Truly God forgives us our trespasses whenever we sincerely repent, but this forgiveness is neither more nor less than the action of His unconditional love: a love that has already "forgotten" whatever wrongs we may have committed. As we pray in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors." In other words, we are called to forgive others in the very same way God forgives us, setting aside the very remembrance of wrongs.
It is pride alone that prompts us to proclaim that we have forgiven our neighbor, while refusing to forget. Inflated by pride, our false egos make a pretense of forgiveness, while stubbornly holding on to its self-righteous claims. The fact is, though, we cannot truly love our neighbor as our very own self until we have "ceased to exist" as self-centered entities, having died with Christ in the waters of Baptism that we might partake of his holy Resurrection. We must strive to put to death every egotistical thought, word, and desire, that our hearts may be opened to the all-consuming love of God in Christ Jesus. Only then can we say with the Holy Apostle, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me."
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