What we are doing here tonight is, basically, remembering. At every Mass we say: do this, in remembrance of me… as Luke and St Paul record Jesus as saying at his last meal with his friends, before he died. Remembering these things is not just a passive thing: it is something very active. Here tonight, we are remembering one who loves us… who is still alive; is here, inviting us to love him. Jesus, during his life, like any teacher, said: Make sure you remember this! What are some of the things he wanted us to remember? To his disciples, worrying about little things, he said: ‘Don’t you remember how I fed the crowd with a few loaves?’ ‘Remember… servants are not greater than their master.’ ‘If you are offering your gift to God, and you remember that you have offended.. do that most difficult thing: go and be reconciled. To make peace where there has been pain and injury.’ He tried to tell them many times that he would suffer and die, but they couldn’t take it in, then on the morning when he passed through death, angels at empty tomb reminded them: ‘Remember how he told you that he would do this…!’ At the end of Matthew’s gospel, saying goodbye, he told us: ‘Remember.. I am with you always, until the end of time.’ But tonight we come together to remember, to rejoice as we remember the strongest reminder of all: Jesus, here among us, says: ‘Do this, in remembrance of me… ‘ Being weak and frightened people, we tend to minimise, to
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