We forget stuff.

Despite all our devices to help us remember, we still forget. Things we have every intention of doing nonetheless slip through the cracks. Our calendars are crammed; list after list dictates our days.

It’s one thing to forget to pick up milk on the way home or to send a birthday card to an elderly aunt. But what’s troubling is when our forgetting leads to fear: Fear that our forgetting has hurt someone; fear that our forgetting has diminished a relationship; fear that our forgetting has reduced us to a machine that exists only to perform task after task after task; fear that we’re losing control.

Yet what defines us as a people of faith is our remembering: remembering that God is in our midst, remembering the spirit of Jesus’ Gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation, remembering to make places for others in our hearts and at our tables.

But we live busy lives — and we forget stuff. The demanding responsibilities of being parents and professionals and workers and students and teammates and homeowners overwhelm us. The day’s “to do” list pushes some plans off our radar screen completely. The roads we travel every day are littered with things we forgot to do: forgetting to express gratitude for a good done to us, forgetting to say I love you to the beloved we sometimes take for granted, forgetting to apologize to someone . . . for forgetting.

Sometimes it’s not that we forget but that we’re overwhelmed with remembering everything important to us.

Our presence in church to celebrate the Eucharist is about remembering. We come here to the table of the Lord to remember as Christ asked us to remember him. Oh, we may come dragging a long list of things to do, problems to figure out, hurts to mend; we come troubled and anxious about the events of the week and the week ahead; we come too distracted to engage in the prayers or take anything of substance from the homily — and that’s OK. In this bread we bless, break and share, we remember what Jesus did — and why. And, if only for the moment, we remember that God is here, that our lives are blessed, that we can move beyond fear.

And forgetfulness.

Today’s Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord is about the sacrament that brings us together to “remember” Jesus the teacher, Jesus the healer, Jesus the worker of wonders, Jesus the washer of feet. Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “Most of us do not live especially holy lives, after all. We spend most of our time sitting in traffic, paying bills, and being irritated with one another. Yet every week we are invited to stop all of that for one hour at least. We are invited to participate in a great drama that has been going on without us for thousands of years, and one that will go on as long as there is a single player left standing.” In this piece of bread and cup of wine, we remember the love of God that became human and real for us — and ask God to help us remember that love despite all the things demanding a shard of our memory.