14 March 1991
Caracas, Venezuela

My dear Friends in Jesus Christ,

Let me talk to you about a word that I am sure is often on our lips when we pray and when we speak to our friends. It is a word which comes to our lips even more frequently, as the years of our lives pass. It is the word remember. As we lose friends through death and feel the pain of loneliness, we find a little consolation in remembering the good times of the past and speaking about them. How often we find ourselves saying, "I remember when I was young..." Sometimes we feel ourselves to be better people when we remember the goodness of others to us, their generosity, their unselfishness, their tenderness, their thoughtfulness.

That little word remember is at the center of the first reading of this evening's Mass. God was displeased with the Israelite people. He had done great things for them, but they had short memories. They became so absorbed in themselves that they forgot God and failed to remember His goodness to them in the past. There is one very frightening sentence in the reading to which we have listened. God said to Moses that He would let His anger blaze up against His people and that He would destroy them.

Then Moses, who was an arbitrator between God and His people, prayed and asked God to remember some of the very good people who had belonged to the nation in the past. They were not only national heroes but they were also saints and great friends of God. "Remember," he prayed, "your servants Abraham and Isaac and Israel." (Ex 32:13). In recalling these great leaders, Moses was saying to God: "Surely you could not destroy a nation that once had such great and holy persons as these," and God relented "in the punishment He had threatened to inflict on His people." (Ex 32:14). For us who live thousands of years later, it is interesting to think that that little word remember is at the heart of our greatest prayer, the Mass. The Mass is the great prayer in which along with Jesus Christ we ask God the Father to remember the life, sufferings, death and resurrection of His only Son: "Remember the goodness, the perfection, the love which Your Son, Jesus Christ, had when He lived on earth and especially when He offered His life on the cross." Since the first Pentecost, groups of Christians have gathered together and offered the Mass, renewing again and again the great act of remembering, while at the same time making present again the offering that Jesus made of Himself on the cross. In doing so, we, like Moses, are turning away the displeasure of God with the world and, more than that, we are bringing down upon the entire world, whether it knows it or not, an uncountable number of graces and favors and blessings.

Every day we hear some frightening things about the cruelty and the wickedness of men. What would the world be like if it did not have the Sacrifice of the Mass? Always remember that there is no grace, no joy, no good thing in this world that has not come to us through Jesus Christ, and particularly through the Mass. At the end of every Eucharistic prayer we are reminded that it is through Christ that all good things come.

Remembering is at the heart of the Eucharist. Let us not leave our remembering just to the time of the Mass. Outside Mass try to remember gratefully. We can spend much time remembering the wounds, the bruises, the injustices life may have given us. We can remember with bitterness the past, but that leads nowhere. Remembering the past with bitterness only makes us more bitter and a Christian should not be bitter, for there was no bitterness in Jesus Christ, notwithstanding the failures of His apostles and the betrayal of Him by Judas. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Give time to recalling the good things of the past, and give thanks to God for them. Thanksgiving at any time of the year, at any time of the day, is a good tonic. It will make you feel better.

May the Virgin Mary, who in her Magnificat remembered God's goodness to her people, help us also to be mindful of His goodness to us in the past and to praise Him for His kindness every day in the Eucharist. "Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless