…The anguish of this self-knowledge is inescapable even on earth as long as there is any self-love left in us: because it is pride that feels the burning of that shame. Only when all pride, all self-love, has been consumed in our souls by the love of God are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of these torments. It is only when we have lost all love for ourselves, for our own sakes, that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or the anguish of shame.

For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not dwell upon those sins but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God.