There is a word I love and have mentioned before, a Greek word essential to a Catholic understanding of the Eucharist and, I think, to our celebration of the hallowed events that we celebrate each Advent and Christmas. The word is anamnesis. It refers to a special kind of memory act. More than being nostalgic or merely reminiscing, anamnesis is a particular way of remembering by which the community participates in the truth and meaning of a particular moment or event from the past.
In the Eucharistic action, for example, the community re-members the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in such a way that the power and truth of that event become present and active here and now. Thus an authentic Eucharistic celebration always moves us “back to the future.” This is why we speak of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist rather than merely understanding it as a memorial. Through silence, story, symbols, music, movement, and gestures, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church’s anamnestic participation transports a past event into the present moment whereupon the community of faith is commanded and empowered to translate into action here and now the meaning of that original event. In this sense, the Eucharist is not merely a “remember when?” but a participation in the activation of the paschal mystery and the Christ presence here and now.
And this is true for Advent and Christmas as well. The only way to avoid making a sweet but deadly mockery of the events of this season by reducing Christmas only to little baby Jesus’ birthday is by risking the questions and call to which the events and persons of the season invite us. The radical trust that sets in motion the radical daring that moved Mary to agree to be the Theotokos — the God-bearer — is not simply a pleasant memory or quaint seasonal image. It is rather an inquiry, a call to anamnesis, a summons for us to engage in the birthing of the Christ presence in these times. In an often-quoted line from a Christmas sermon, the 13th century Dominican Meister Eckhart asks: what good is it for Jesus to have been born a long time ago if he is not born in our hearts and in our lives today. Indeed.
Advent/Christmas is a time of spiritual surrogacy. If Christ is to be born again in the world – our presence is required. The season only becomes more than nostalgia or play-acting pageantry if we dare to understand that the angel’s question to Mary of Nazareth is our question to answer as well. “Will you agree to be a Theotokos, a God-bearer?” And not merely a God-carrier but a God-birther? One who brings the presence of God into the world here and now? Who could honestly look at our world today and think that Christ’s presence is not desperately needed?
What Mary did once physically and for all time, we are asked to do creatively, consciously, and newly in this place and time: to give birth wherever we go to the aliveness of God, the friendship of God, the compassion of Christ, the hope and joy, the liberation and light, the healing and love of Emmanuel.
Let us re-member that when we plead with God O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (are we aware that’s a plea), as do the people of Aleppo, for example, God is pleading with us to be the earthen vessels through which Christ’s presence comes into the world today. To sing it is not merely to join in a beautiful carol. It is rather to say like Mary, “Yes. I will be a Theotokos. You can use me as a way to come into the world. Let it be done according to your will.”.♦
This is a revised excerpt from a longer meditation from December 9, 2009 that can be found here.