God never forgets how much he loves us. If this weren’t so, none of us would be in existence. God loves us into life and loves us through our life and one day, if we let him, will love us into eternal life. The people of Israel had to know this better than anyone. In today’s first reading, Joshua gathers the people for a reminder. God had called and given them the promise through Abraham. Throughout the years, he dispelled all their enemies and especially the Egyptians who subjected them to abject slavery. He also gave them a future and a city to dwell in: land they had not tilled and cities they had not built. All of this because he loved them.
The question the Pharisees asked Jesus in the Gospel today had nothing to do with love, which is odd because it was a question about marriage. Or, actually, the converse of marriage: divorce. They were asking not because they wanted to know about how to love better in their relationships, but rather because they were trying to trick Jesus into some Moses-bashing. But Jesus has none of that, reminding them of the indissolubility of love.
Many things can be forgotten. God forgets things all the time – namely, our sins when we confess them. But love can never be forgotten. God never forgets how much he loves us because God is love itself, and we dare not forget how much we love him, and because we love him, how much we love one another. That love may require all kinds of forgetting: forgetting past hurts, forgetting resentments, forgetting what we think we deserve.
May we all forget what we have to so that love is the only thing we can remember, and may we all go together, one day, to eternal life.