Last week, Our Lady of the Ozarks Parish served as the primary location for the diocesan seminarian retreat. Bishop Rice, Fr. Joseph Stoverink, and six seminarians participated in the three and a half day gathering. One of the seminarians noticed my personalized license plate and asked me, why “ZAKAR”?
I told him the word Zakar is based on scripture. I chose it 16 years ago when I discovered its meaning during my diaconate formation class on the Old Testament. Zakar is a Hebrew word which means “to remember”. To ‘zakar’ is not merely to recall information stored in your head (numbers, dates, facts etc.). To zakar is to place your hands and feet and lips, to engage yourself, in whatever action that remembrance requires.
Our Jewish brothers and sisters have a beautiful way of thinking when it comes to remembering events of the past. While we often think of past events as something already done, the Jewish people see the events of the past in front of them, visibly there to learn and grow from. For them, remembering and not forgetting is key. In keeping with our Jewish roots, we remember (or should) through living our Catholic faith and by participating in the Sacred Mysteries of the Mass. The Jewish people remember their slavery in Egypt, they remember their fight against Greek oppression (Chanukkah), they remember the Holocaust.
The phrase, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, is a solid Jewish concept. Likewise, we are to remember what we’ve seen and pass it on. We recall from Deuteronomy 4:9. Only be careful and watch yourselves closely lest you ever forget the things that your eyes have seen, or you let them slip out of your mind. Teach them to your children and your children’s children. We recall from scripture God’s covenant with his people. First, God’s promise to Noah when He sent a flood to cover the earth.
Genesis 9:13-15
I will place my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. …I will remember my covenant between me and you and with every living creature of every kind, that water and flood shall never again destroy all flesh. God reminds us again of His covenantal relationship in Leviticus 26:40-44.
If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, the trespasses (sins) that they committed against me, and that they acted in opposition to me, so that I walked in opposition to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies… but then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham… I am the Lord, their God. And in God’s final sacramental covenant with us, in in the breaking of the bread at the Last Supper, Jesus offers these words to us and his disciples. Luke 22:19-20.
Then he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you. Do this in memory of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be poured out for you.” Do not forget. Remember and pass on. Pass on what you have learned, what you have seen, and what God has done for you. You are the witness to God’s Covenant and the proof of His love. Do not hide it in your heart, remember… and pass it on.
Author Bio:
Deacon Dan Vaughn