Ave Maria Meditations
I should like to ask you urgently, from now on, that you never let your past sins be an obstacle between you and Jesus. It is a ruse of the devil to keep putting our sins before our eyes in order to make them like a screen between the Savior and us. Think of your past sins for your own humiliation or to persuade yourself once again of your weakness, of your unworthiness; think of them in order to find happiness in expiation, in order to confirm your firm resolution not to fall again. Certainly that is necessary, but especially in order to bless Jesus for having pardoned you, for having purified you, for having cast all your sins to the bottom of the sea: He will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea (Mic 7:19).
Do not go looking for them at the bottom of the sea! He has wiped them out; He has forgotten them. His blood has been shed; the flames of His mercy have done their work: they have burned up all of them, consumed them all while renewing you. Our faults must remain for us a source of humility and repentance, but especially a source of immense thankfulness for the forgiveness we have received, a source of limitless faith in a limitless mercy; a faith, moreover, which (to the extent that it is filled with love) obtains the remission of the punishment we deserve for our sins.
+Fr. Jean du Caur de Jesus d’Elba
