Anamnesis: A Special Kind of Remembrance

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Usually at least once per lifetime, there is an event that looms larger than life, often times a tragedy.  Sometimes the event affects mostly local folk.  Other times it impacts an entire country or world.  No doubt those who attended MSU this year will talk about where they were when the shooting happened on campus.  For me, the major event was the terrorist attack on 9/11.  For those slightly older than me, maybe it was the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.  For those in my parents’ generation and older, it was the JFK assassination. 
    These events weigh differently than other memories.  It almost always yields the question, “Where were you…?”  My mom talks about watching her mother, my grandmother, cry as the television reports of JFK’s death started to roll in.  I can remember walking down the hall of Lansing Catholic High School, and hearing our principal come over the PA and tell teachers that they may want to turn on the TV (we only had local channels) in their classrooms, and watching replays of the airplanes hitting the World Trade Center, and the buildings collapse before our eyes.  These events are not just memories in the sense that I remember my graduation; they etch themselves in a unique way into our very sub-conscience which seems to make the past present once more.
    The Greek word anamnesis is the word used for this kind of remembering, and which applied to the Passover celebration that Moses commanded the people to observe.  That night, the night that the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites marked with the blood of the lamb, was certainly one of those great events that etched itself in the memory.  But Moses commanded that it be celebrated each year in much the same way (though without the blood on the doorposts).  They were not only to remember the event, but, as it were, enter once more into that saving act which initiated their freedom from slavery in Egypt. 
    Since Christ celebrated the Passover (albeit a day early, due to His impending death), His celebration of the Last Supper dripped with that same significance and bearing.  The Apostles knew that they were entering into a sacred moment which brought to the present they ancient liberation from the Egyptians.  But our Lord changed some of the celebrations, which would have been noticeable.  First, He began with what we heard in the Gospel today, where He washed the feet of His Apostles.  Certainly the Apostles would have been shocked at this happening, but perhaps more so because it proceeded the ancient ritual.  Peter, never one to simply go with the flow, objects, but then wholeheartedly embraces such a new ritual.
    But even at the Passover meal, Christ changes the ritual.  No longer so much about a liberation from slavery, but now the giving over of His own Body and Blood, as He creates a new ritual for His Chosen Band, and for the Church which will embrace, not only Israel, but the entire world.  Again, the Apostles would have noticed this stark difference, and would have understood the words “Do this is memory of me” as a command for this new ritual to be repeated into the future, just as the Passover had been commanded by Moses. 
    As we enter into this new ritual, as we obey the command of the Lord to celebrate this sacrifice in His memory, we are not simply thinking back some 2,000 years to what happened in an upper room.  At this Eucharistic celebration, and at every Mass, we do not only recall what Christ did for us.  We enter into His offering of His Body and Blood under the sacramental signs of bread and wine.  We participate in that to which the Last Supper points, the death on the cross on Calvary. 
    No longer is it the blood of a dumb animal that covers the lintels of our doors, but the Precious Blood of the truly unblemished Lamb of God that paints the lintels of our lips as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ.  No longer does that blood tell the Angel of Death to pass over the house so that the children of Israel can be freedom from bondage in Egypt after they passed through the Red Sea, but the Precious Blood tells Satan not to enter the holy temple of God that we have become by baptism, and we are freed from any venial sins and oppression by the devil. 
    Remembering is good, and provides some benefits.  But entering in allows us to share in the benefits of what happened.  Our participation at Mass is not meant to be like watching an old Super Bowl on TV.  We are meant, using that analogy, to be on the field in that old Super Bowl game.  Yes, it happens sacramentally, but it still happens, nonetheless. 
    And so, at this Mass, as at every Mass, may we not simply act like spectators at an ancient event, but truly give our hearts and minds to being in that Upper Room with our Lord.  As we walk in procession tonight, may we see ourselves walking with our Lord from that Upper Room, across the valley, to Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ will ask us to watch and pray with Him.  As the ancient hymn from the Divine Liturgy of St. James sings, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, / and with fear and trembling stand. / Ponder nothing earthly minded / For with blessing in His hand. / Christ our God to earth descending, / Our full homage to demand”, who, with the Father and Holy Spirit reigns for ever and ever.