In Remembrance of Me

Gospel: Luke 9: 11-17

The words of Jesus - do this in remembrance of me - has two meanings.  We have come to make the dominant meaning about the creation of a ritual action where we re-enact the memorial offering and partake of the meal for our benefit.  Yet, this interpretation has no meaning without the greater understanding that Jesus meant for us to actually live out this action - to go out and offer our lives as a living sacrifice of love and mercy for others.  

Today's Gospel for the day highlights that fact.  A vast crowd is hungry and the disciples inform Jesus of this fact.  He says, "Give them some food yourselves." It is for us to give of ourselves so that the crowd may be nourished.  Similarly, in the same supper where Jesus said to do this in remembrance of me, he washed the disciples' feet and said to them, "As I have done, so also you must do...you must wash the feet of others."  

And so we do gather to celebrate the ritual action of the Last Supper and the offering of the cross.  But we do so not as an end in itself.  Rather, we do so as a means to living out in our daily lives this example of Jesus to love and serve, to feed and nourish, to extend mercy to a vast crowd of people each day.  To whomever we meet and encounter we must be healing, liberation, and nourishment for them in our love and mercy in imitation of the one we call teacher and Lord.