One of the points of this past weekend's retreat was on the cleansing of the memory and the imagination. I have written on this before on this blog from
Father Xavier talked about the sensitive memory which is the image which one imagines, or what we have seen like on TV and in movies, or in life, which are physical--seen.
One must pray for the grace of forgetfulness of past sins and even temptations.
It helps you not to recall those things which will cause you to sin.
A friend of mine has experienced this as a complete gift; but most of us have to ask for this.
This is the gift of forgetting past sins we have committed so that the demons do not use these memories to tempt us or to discourage us from pursuing virtue.
Someone brought this up after the retreat so I wanted to write about this again from my notes.
St. Ignatius, may I add again, has the prayer, "Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me."
I hate the song, as it trivializes the experience which follows the prayer.
Giving God one's memory is serious business It means He has control over all our memories. Those which are connected to sin can disappear if we really become serious about being detached from that sin.
Giving God our liberty means that we do not make any decisions outside His Will. We mean it when we say, "Thy will be done." Our liberty may be valid things we can do, but choose not to do as these things are not in the Perfect Will of God.
Our understanding, as Father Xavier noted, is marred by sin, and we must have that purified to that only the truth remains.