Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne

MEDITATION POPE FRANCIS

“Remember the long journey you have made; the Lord your God has imposed it upon you” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Remember: with this invitation from Moses, the Word of God has opened today. Shortly afterward, Moses reaffirmed: “Do not forget the Lord your God” (cf. v. 14). Scripture was given to us to overcome forgetfulness of God. It is so important to remember it when we pray! As a Psalm teaches us: “I remember the deeds of the Lord; I remember your wonders of old” (76:12). Likewise, remember the wonders and marvels that the Lord has performed in our own lives.

It is essential to remember the good we have received: without remembering it, we become strangers to ourselves, mere passersby in existence; without memory, we uproot ourselves from the soil that nourishes us and let ourselves be carried away like leaves by the wind. Remembering, on the contrary, is to reconnect with stronger bonds, to be part of a history, to breathe with a people. Memory is not a private matter; it is the life that unites us to God and to others. For this reason, in the Bible, the memory of the Lord will be passed down from generation to generation, recounted from father to son, as this beautiful passage says: “Tomorrow, when your son asks you, ‘What are these decrees, laws, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?’ then you shall tell your son, ‘We were slaves—all our days of slavery—and before our very eyes the Lord performed signs and wonders’” (6 Deuteronomy 20:22). You will pass on the memory to your son.