psalm 78 - retelling god's goodness - 24th week wednesday 2016

Our responsorial psalm today is psalm 78.  It is the second longest psalm. It is a long psalm because it is a retelling of the story of Israel, a story which stretches from the time of Exodus to the time of King David.  It recalls Israel’s relationship with God through the years, a relationship that has so many ups and downs.  One day the people are faithful to God, the next day they become unfaithful to God, and yet God continues to forgive, God continues to draw them back to himself despite their disloyalty.  Our responsorial psalm today is a summary – “Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again. But then their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant. Yet God was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them.” That’s the story.

The real intent however of this psalm is to encourage us to tell and retell the story of God’s goodness and mercy to us – “What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us, we will not hide these things from the children, the psalm says.”  We must hand down to our children the stories of our faith as they were handed down to us by our parents.  We must tell again and again the story of the cross, that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  We must not forget what Christ did for us, we must not forget the works of the Lord.

In the bible to forget is not Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.  It is a sin.  When the people have become forgetful of what the Lord has done for them, it is a sin.  Our Eucharist however is a remembering of God’s greatest act of love in Calvary.  But we need to retell this story, our children need to hear the story from us time and again lest it would be lost in their memory.

Every May in the Philippines catechists from all over my diocese would stay in the seminary for a month to take a refresher course on catechesis.  I would volunteer as a teacher to these would be teachers in the public schools, and one gets surprised and sometimes teary eyed by their enthusiasm and sacrifice.  And to think that most of them are not paid anything except bus fare.  But they are happy.  I am glad they are happy.  Why?  Because they are the story tellers of our faith and their role is crucial in retelling the story for the next generation fulfilling the mandate of psalm 78.