Remembering God's Mercy Redeem the Past and Free Yourself from Painful Memories

Remembering God’s Mercy is a perfect resource for personal spiritual growth during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. 

In the first book to explore how memories impact and are affected by faith, bestselling author Dawn Eden offers a guide to the process she used to heal the pain of her past. Through her own story, as well as the examples of St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Peter Faber, and Pope Francis, she shows how the mercy of God, who holds all of events of our life in his own memory, can bring you healing and inner peace.

Dawn Eden’s My Peace I Give You helped thousands find peace after abuse and established her as the leading Catholic authority on recovering from traumatic stress. In Remembering God’s Mercy, Eden—who suffered childhood sexual abuse that left her with PTSD—describes how she was inspired by the example of Pope Francis, St. Ignatius, and St. Peter Faber, all of whom suffered from their own painful experiences and followed a similar path to healing.

Pope Francis has spoken openly about how a life-threatening bout of pneumonia affected his relationship with God, saying that recognizing and accepting the power of memories to color perceptions is essential to seeing God in all things and experiencing inner peace. The pope was influenced by the examples of Ignatius and Faber. Ignatius suffered the loss of his mother at a young age and was sent by his father to live with another family. He also fought as a mercenary soldier as a young man and experienced the trauma of war and physical pain. Faber, a student of Ignatius and among the early members of the Society of Jesus, suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety for years. He wrote in his diary how he applied Ignatius’s spiritual practices in a way that enabled him to rise above his mental suffering to grow closer with God.

Through the wisdom of these three Jesuits, Eden developed an Ignatian model of healing:

• Acknowledge your memories.
• Accept that they change the way you see God, your fate, and other people.
• Allow God to transform your memories by coloring the past and present with his story of salvation.

Eden examines how Jesus’ wounds can bring healing to your own hurt through prayer, Mass, the Sacraments (particularly confession), and the life of the Church. In each chapter, she will engage you with specific steps to take using the most famous Ignatian prayer, the Suscipe—Latin for “receive”—to transform your past traumas into an offering to God that is united with Jesus’ own self-offering.

Dawn Eden maintains a busy publicity and speaking schedule in the United States and in Europe. She regularly speaks on college campuses and at conferences. She has been featured in National Catholic Reporter and on NBC’s Today, EWTN's The Journey Home and Women of Grace, and on numerous radio programs and podcasts. Her first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, which is available in both nondenominational and Catholic editions, has sold more than 20,000 copies. Her second book, My Peace I Give You, has sold more than 10,000 copies.

"Pope Francis used to say that the Church too often had Jesus tied up in the sacristy, refusing to let him out. Remembering God’s Mercy sets Christ free to enter our most sacred territory—the wounds of our own lives. Bringing together her own experience of healing with Pope Francis’s proclamation of the mercy of God, this music journalist-turned theologian has given us a manual for conversion that begins where St. Ignatius does—in the mission territory of our past. By showing how every memory can become a place of encounter with God, Eden gently reveals how we can be freed from the prison of our wounds, not by fleeing pain but by letting God turn it into a gift. Compelling and direct, drawing honestly on her own painful memories, Remembering God’s Mercy is a rich and sensitive meditation on Francis’s ‘Revolution of Tenderness.’ Whether studied as theology, used as a companion on retreat, or read in quiet moments, it is a life-changing book."

Austen Ivereigh
Author of The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope

"Dawn Eden presents texts by three Jesuits—Ignatius of Loyola, Peter Faber, and Pope Francis—that show the importance they give to Memory. This is a deeply thought-provoking Ignatian reflection on what pain, and even trauma, can teach us about our longing for healing, redemption, and resurrection."

Rev. Hans Zollner S.J.
President of the Centre for Child Protection
of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome

"Dawn Eden’s openness to the Holy Spirit is evident on every page of Remembering God’s Mercy, drawing you into the same. Open this book and experience God lifting a veil and enveloping you in his Divine Mercy."

Kathryn Jean Lopez
Editor at National Review

"This is an exceptional book. In her usual highly readable and storytelling style, Dawn Eden helps us understand the Ignatian spirituality of Pope Francis, as well as how and why suffering can be ‘redemptive.’ Remembering God’s Mercy breaks new ground and adds significantly to works about healing from trauma and the painful memories that follow. One quotation sums it up: ‘when I unite my own wounded heart with the wounded and glorified heart of Jesus, his wounds heal mine.'"

Rev. James Kubicki, S.J.
National Director of the Apostleship of Prayer

"Dawn Eden manages to flawlessly bring together Jesus, Mary, the apostles, Pope Francis, and St. Ignatius. It is an inspired work. Like Mary, I treasured up and pondered the insights."

Rev. Mark E. Thibodeaux, S.J.
Author of Reimagining the Ignatian Examen