However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children's children.
It has been said that the great sin of the Israelite people was the sin of forgetfulness. Whenever they forgot all that the Lord had done for them in creation and liberation, in His unfailing loving kindness and mercy toward them, they fell into sin. They compromised the covenant. Their forgetfulness led to infidelity – their unfaithfulness to the God who loved them into existence. The role of the Prophet, raised up in the history of the Israelite people was to call them to remembrance. The Prophets were the conscience of Israel. Their message to their hearers was, quite simply, to ‘not forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live…’ As people of the new covenant, our gathering for the ‘great remembrance’ at the Table of the Lord, remains the Lord’s unfailing invitation to each one of us to never forget our deepest identity as the Lord’s baptized. May the grace of this moment and the journey of this Season of Conversion, keep us devoted to the Lord with all our heart and be ever united in prayer.