Forgive and forget?

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I think this fits somehow with the last post—our forgiven memories become what we are, our wounds are even in this life glorified to an extent, a reflection, perhaps, of the glory our wounds will share with Christ’s in the life to come.

The Jesus Prayer is for me the central way this happens, unseen, without intellection—though not without struggle!

I’ve been thinking lately about the relationship between the Jesus Prayer as intercession, and the Jesus Prayer as contemplation, not to mention the Jesus Prayer as petition… Some people recommend changing the Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…”) in order to use it as intercession: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on Lucy”, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on the Christians in Indonesia” and so on. I’ve no objection if anyone feels that works for them, but for me, it doesn’t.

Changing the Prayer—for me—misses the point of Romans 8.26, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” (NIV) It distracts me to have to remember whether it’s Lucy, or Jim, or the homeless people in Bournemouth, I’m supposed to be asking mercy for, and it might even prevent our being open to the Spirit praying in us (Romans 8.27) as he would otherwise. The contemplative dimension of the Prayer, which requires the reasoning side of the mind to disengage, and the heart to be filled with Jesus’ own love and mercy by the action of the Holy Spirit, is only free to function so long as one is not intellectually caught up in the words that are occupying the conscious surface of the mind—and it is the contemplative dimension of the Prayer which enables one’s whole being to be placed at the service of God in prayer.

The drift of what I’m trying to say becomes especially clear when we consider Nouwen’s point above:  if we have been hurt by Fred at some time, what shall I pray for? That I will be enabled to forgive him? That Fred will hear and accept my forgiveness (bearing in mind that he may by now be dead, or in another country and not on Facebook)? That God will bless him? That God will heal us both? That we will be reconciled? All of the above? Or things I haven’t even begun to imagine, that God will achieve in both our hearts through our strangely shared wounds, and through my prayer? If it’s this last alternative, how much better to leave it to God to pray in and through me, as the Prayer works unseen in my heart, bringing about unspeakable wonders of mercy that I don’t have the thoughts to frame, or the brain to comprehend!