Anamnesis [an-am-nee-sis]

One of my favorite words is a Greek term. It is an important theological word used especially by Catholic Christians in reference to the Eucharist. But it seems to me that anamnesis might be a reconciling word where Christians of all persuasions, while still holding their particular understandings of the Eucharist, might be able to meet as one in the call to action, in the charge to embody the Eucharist in daily living.

Antoine de Saint Exupery’s classic, The Little Prince, might be a good place to start when considering the meaning of anamnesis and its implications for our lives. You might recall that the little prince comes from a tiny planet no bigger than a house. There he lives all alone, except for three knee-high volcanoes and one beautiful but rather proud rose. It is due to his frustration with this rose that the little prince sets off on his interplanetary travels, which eventually bring him to earth. Toward the end of the story the little prince meets up with a very foxy fox. The fox, being a fox, and thus made up of equal parts wildness and wisdom, proves himself to be not only a very good fox, but of all things a very decent sacramental theologian as well. Have a listen:

If you tame me,” said the fox to the little prince, “it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all others . . . Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields yonder? . . . You have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat. . .

From our Jewish forebears Christians inherit the conviction that ours is a God who forever keeps us in mind. Should God forget humankind or you or me even for a fleeting moment, we would cease to exist. Thus, God’s intimate and personal care is contained within the notion of divine memory. Isaiah records the seriousness of God’s commitment to remember God’s people:

“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name.” (Isaiah 49:15-16a)

The idea of God’s remembrance of us is so fundamental to the nature of God that the German mystic, Angelus Silesius, dared to turn the above theological maxim on its head and said: “If God ceased to think of me [God] would cease to exist.” The Christian understanding of Eucharist is dynamically related to the experience of grateful remembrance. The God we re-member ourselves to is the God who never stops remembering us. Thus gratefulness is not only the meaning of the Greek-derived word Eucharist (thanksgiving) but is an apt description of the entire liturgy and more so of the fully awakened life.

In particular, the Christian notion of memory is rooted in the belief that God’s most vivid act of remembrance is Jesus himself. Jesus is the string of hesed (steadfast love) tied tightly around the thumb of God and we are God’s dearest memory. In Jesus, God does not simply call us to mind, but enters into our lives as personal involvement and loving concern. The incarnation, the supreme act of divine remembrance and solidarity, reminds us of our sacred origin and the need to be connected to our life source (one possible etymology of the word religion). Thus, Eucharist is not merely a memory-evoking event, but also an event that evokes humility and gratitude in those who participate wholeheartedly in it.

For Catholic Christians the consecrated bread is the golden grain that brings us out of our private burrows, brings us back the thought of Jesus and one another, and elicits gratefulness. But as we listen deeply to the “wind in the wheat,” to God’s Spirit (ruach) present in the bread and moving in our lives, the Eucharist does not merely bring us back the thought of Jesus. It brings the life and ruach of Jesus forward to us. Inherent in the Eucharist is the invitation and expectation to re-member ourselves to Jesus. In particular to recall the act of Christ’s dying and rising for the sake of love. This act of remembrance derived from the Hebrew notion of zikkaron, and the equivalent Greek term anamnesis, signifies ‘active remembrance.’

Anamnesis is an evocative word that signals a special kind of remembering. What we celebrate in the Eucharist is not nostalgia. It is not merely reminiscing about the past. Intentional engagement on the part of those remembering involves a movement not simply from the present to the past, but also from the present to the future. This is why Eucharist is at once a celebration and an ethical action. It is a remembrance and a requirement, a divine donation and a human obligation. Anamnesis involves re-connecting ourselves to a person and an event in such a way that the presence of that person and the power of that past event are unleashed into our immediate situation, impacting the present and altering the future. A Hassidic tale recounted by Martin Buber illustrates this more poignantly:

“My grandfather was paralyzed. Once he was asked to tell a story about his teacher and he told how the Holy Baal Shem Tov used to jump and dance when he was praying. My grandfather stood up while he was telling the story and the story carried him away so much that he had to jump and dance to show how the master had done it. From that moment, he was healed. This is how stories ought to be told.”

The Eucharistic action always moves us “back to the future.” Through words, symbols, and gestures, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church‘s anamnestic ritual transports a past event into the present moment whereupon the community is commanded to translate into action here and now the meaning of that original event.

By joining Jesus in the dance of communion, we show how the master did it. But the mandatum, “Do this in remembrance of me“ recommends neither mimicry nor ecstasy. By telling the story as it ought to be told, by putting it into action, and by giving ourselves entirely to its movement, we are carried away not into ecstasy but into gracefully grounded lives patterned after the self-giving love, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The challenge is to transpose it into our own unique circumstances and life situations, attentive to our particular passions, talents, and temperaments and responsive especially to the pressing needs in our communities and world. To dance the dance of Eucharist is to experience and then imaginatively extend the liberating presence of Christ in our historical place and time. When communities “tell” Eucharist as it “ought to be told” — and can it be told any better way than by jumping and dancing? — the result is always the same: healing and hope, new freedom and deep faith, justice and forgiveness, quiet assurance and jubilant laughter, self-giving love and communal creativity, reconciliation and kinship.

Re-membering myself to you this day in gratitude and love,

Dan

Most of this reflection comes from my article “Listening to the Wind in the Wheat: A Meditation on the Eucharist” which can be found by clicking on the title.