Re-member

Yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi. At Mass I hear the priest say the same words I've heard hundreds of times before:

Do this in remembrance of me.

Most times, those words wash over me. Familiar. Comfortable. Part of the liturgy I've known my whole life.

But this year I got stuck on a single word.

Remember.

Not memory.

Not nostalgia.

Not looking backward.

Remember

I started wondering if remembering might be something more than recalling information.

What if remembering is the sacred work of putting back together what has come apart?

Corpus Christi is, after all, the feast of the Body of Christ.

A body.

Not a collection of pieces.

Not a pile of disconnected parts.

A whole.

And that thought led me to the Sacred Heart, which we celebrate in the Feast of the Sacred Heart later this week. It’s traditional to observe the Novena to the Sacred Heart in the week leading up to the Feast. The Sacred Heart devotion has always fascinated me. The image is beautiful, but it is also unsettling.

The heart is exposed. Vulnerable. Wounded. It is not the image of a heart protected from suffering. It is the image of a heart that keeps loving anyway.

One of the central themes of devotion to the Sacred Heart is reparation.

That's not a word we hear very often. It may even make you uncomfortable. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that reparation is really about repair.

When we hurt someone, something breaks. When we act out of selfishness, something separates. When we choose pride over love, something that was meant to be united becomes divided.

Love doesn't simply acknowledge the damage; love attempts repair, amends.

The Sacred Heart novena makes an observation that many of us would rather avoid. It calls us not only to repent for our personal sins but also to acknowledge the wounds carried by our communities and our nation.

Today’s reflection specifically names slavery and racism as wounds that require healing.

That can make people uncomfortable.

Good.

Most real healing starts with discomfort. You can't repair a wound by pretending it isn't there. You can't reconcile a relationship by acting as though nothing happened. You can't restore what has been broken without first admitting that it broke.

Bishop Joseph Perry writes that reparation is not merely words. It requires gestures. Concrete actions. Acts of sincerity. In other words, reparation is something you do, a living amends.

Which brings me back to remembering.

Maybe remembrance is not simply an act of the mind.

Maybe it is an act of restoration.

Maybe remembering is participating in God's work of gathering together what has become scattered.

Every Mass begins with people who arrive carrying different stories, different wounds, different fears, different failures.

Then Christ gathers us together.

He takes what is scattered and makes it one body.

He takes what is broken and makes it whole.

He takes what is divided and teaches it communion.

Every time we receive Communion, we participate in an act of re-membering.

Christ takes a room full of people who have very little in common and makes them one Body.

The miracle isn't simply that bread becomes Christ.

The miracle is that Christ somehow keeps turning us into a better version of ourselves, more like him, more capable of selfless love

Perhaps that's why Jesus didn't say, "Think about me."

He said, Do this in remembrance of me.

Because remembrance is not passive.

It is participation.

It is joining Christ in the work of healing what is fractured.

Repairing what is damaged.

Reconciling what is estranged.

Loving what has been wounded.

And maybe that's the invitation hidden inside Corpus Christi.

Not simply to remember Christ.

But to become part of Christ's work of re-membering the world.

One broken piece at a time.

Fortunately, most repairs don't begin with grand gestures.

They begin with the next right thing.

An apology.

A phone call.

A listening ear.

A cup of coffee shared with someone you've been avoiding.

A willingness to say, "I was wrong."

A willingness to hear, "I forgive you."

The Kingdom of God seems remarkably fond of small tools.

And maybe that's because Christ spent his earthly life repairing hearts one person at a time.

So today, if you're wondering how to participate in the re-membering of the world, don't worry about solving everything.

Just do the next right thing.

God has been putting broken things back together for a very long time.

And He's remarkably willing to work with whatever tools are available.