In Memory of Me

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edarlitrix

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Hi, I have a question about the Eucharist.

If it is the real body and blood directly present with us, why does Jesus say “do this in *memory *of me” in the gospels? This implies absence of the real thing–namely Jesus–rather, you have *impressions *of its past presence on your mind.
 
edarlitrix said:
Hi, I have a question about the Eucharist.

If it is the real body and blood directly present with us, why does Jesus say “do this in *memory *of me” in the gospels? This implies absence of the real thing–namely Jesus–rather, you have *impressions *of its past presence on your mind.
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Christ does not command only a remembrance of him, rather to take his body and blood with a remembrance of him. There is a *memorial of his *sacrifice.

After making Christ present in the Eucharist, we offer Him to the Father.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1357 We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.
 
Remembrance does not imply absence – not even in common parlance. I just ran into someone in the Post Office yesterday whom I had not seen in quite a few years. He had aged quite a bit. He was always a neat dresser and was always well-groomed. Now he is shabbily dressed, shaggy-haired and unkempt. We walked pass each other and he turned back and said, “Don’t I know you?” I recognized him and responded, “Yes, I remember you!” He was certainly present and yet I remembered him and said just that. Also, when Jesus, in the Greek translation of his Aramaic words, used the word “anamnesin” he was calling on the Jewish tradition of the celebration of the Passover and transforming it from a re-presentation of the Passover from slavery in Egypt to freedom to a re-presentation of his life-giving suffering and death. Even today, the youngest child in the Jewish family asks at the Passover meal, “Why is THIS night not like any other night?” Not, “why was THAT night…” The Passover is considered to be present in its re-presentation, its solemnization, its ritual enactment. Later on the in same chapter (22) of Luke that has the Last Supper, after Peter denied even knowing Jesus, Jesus looks at Peter and Peter is said to remember the words Jesus had spoken to him that he would deny him three times. It was precisely Jesus’ presence that enabled Peter to remember his words, not his absence. We use similar language for using a computer. Something may be in the memory (human or computer) but recalling it is a different matter.
 
The priest says, “In memory of me”, because the priest is acting in the person of Christ, as he does when he administers all sacraments.
 
Our LORD died a real, bodily death, and we still don’t have HIM with us in HIS natural human self. It is that sacrifice that we “commemorate.”

IMS.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Our LORD died a real, bodily death, and we still don’t have HIM with us in HIS natural human self. It is that sacrifice that we “commemorate.”

IMS.

ICXC NIKA
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Cacechism

1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution:
“This is my body which is given for you” and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood."187
In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."188
​
Really present “under the outward appearances of sensible things.” – Mysterium Fidei of Pope Paul VI, 1965. (No. 45)

w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium.html
 
The word used in the Luke and 1 Cor was anamaesin

Another use of that word comes in Mark 11:21
Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!
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I would presume that you would agree that the tree was not absent.

As St. Paul used in again in 1 Cor 4:17

For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

We can agree that Timothy would not be absent when he reiterates the teaching of St. Paul to them. Likewise, we can be assured that the teachings that are remembered are the same ones, not simply the impressions of the teaching of St. Paul
 
By saying the words , " this is my Body ". ". This is my blood. " & " Do this in memory of me " wouldn’t that infer that the Bread and wine are a substitute for the real thing ?

Plus I like the response of GEddy
 
I will need to look in my commentary, but I think I remember reading about different types of offerings in Judaism. There are at least five.

I thought there was something called a “rememberance offering” but I shall have to go check.

It’s a great question, though.
 
JamalChristophr said:
I will need to look in my commentary, but I think I remember reading about different types of offerings in Judaism. There are at least five.

I thought there was something called a “rememberance offering” but I shall have to go check.

It’s a great question, though.
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Christ is the Paschal Lamb. See Exodus 12:29%between%

Catechism has:1339 Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum: giving his disciples his Body and his Blood:
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the passover meal for us, that we may eat it…” They went … and prepared the passover. and when the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him. and he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”… and he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” and likewise the cup after supper, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood."164​
1340 By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus’ passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.
“Do this in memory of me”
 
Hi. I hope the following thoughts will help:

“Do this in memory of me.”

“Do this” is the Lord’s command to repeat the Rites of Consecration which, through ‘Liturgical Remembrance’, allows the Last Supper and the Sacrifice on Calvary to be brought over from the past and re-presented (not repeated) to us in the present.

It will help us to understand if we consider the Semitic import of ‘remembering’. In Semitic understanding, one is not merely recollecting the content of a past conversation, action, events, etc. It is more dynamic than this.

Thus, when the Consecration Rites are repeated in memory of Jesus, His complete Sacrifice on Calvary is re-presented sacramentally on our altars. His one Sacrifice on Calvary is brought over from the past and made present to us in our present time. The remembrance makes present again the actual past event; and the actual event is lived.

In other words, the Holy Mass, through the Consecration Rites and the action of the Holy Spirit, sacramentally re-presents, or makes present again, Jesus’ one Sacrifice on Calvary. The Sacrifice becomes present to us, and we become present to it.

Regarding Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, we read from the Questions and Answers on the Eucharist, from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pennsylvania:

"What Jesus offers us is His continuing, enduring presence every time we celebrate the Eucharist… The way in which Jesus is present in the Eucharist cannot be explained in physical terms because it transcends the ordinary necessities of space and measurement. It is a supernatural mystery that the person who becomes fully present at Mass is the same risen Savior who is seated at the right hand of the Father … He does not have to leave heaven to become present on earth."

Thus, through the Consecration Rites, what transpired during the Last Supper is made present from the past: the bread becomes the Lord’s Body and the wine becomes His Blood. In either of these forms, the Lord Jesus, in His glorified state, is truly present in PERSON: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity!

For a more detailed sharing on the topic, the following links may help:
  1. ’Do This in Memory of Me.'
    forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=11811164#post11811164
  2. ’Liturgical Remembrance’
    forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=11843047#post11843047
One may also read other related portions of the Forum thread “The Institution Narrative and Consecration” for a wider backgrounder to the topic.
 
edarlitrix said:
Hi, I have a question about the Eucharist.

If it is the real body and blood directly present with us, why does Jesus say “do this in *memory *of me” in the gospels? This implies absence of the real thing–namely Jesus–rather, you have *impressions *of its past presence on your mind.
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People have been posting all kinds of links but I’m not sure anyone directly stated that our modern day usage of the word “remembrance” falls far short of what Christ was actually saying.

It is my understanding that that Christ’s words indicate the Jewish understanding of the Passover. This kind of remembrance is not the mere recollection of a past event. It is bringing the past into the present. It’s kind of a merging of time.
 
SMHW said:
People have been posting all kinds of links but I’m not sure anyone directly stated that our modern day usage of the word “remembrance” falls far short of what Christ was actually saying.

It is my understanding that that Christ’s words indicate the Jewish understanding of the Passover. This kind of remembrance is not the mere recollection of a past event. It is bringing the past into the present. It’s kind of a merging of time.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is the reconnecting of the one sacrifice Christ presented to the Father, not merely remembering a past event.

We moderns look at pictures of deceased loved ones and say we are remembering them, but we are not actually being reconnected to them except in our hearts and minds. The Eucharist goes far beyond that. In receiving Christ’s Body and Blood, we are receiving his Soul and Divinity–his whole person. It takes more than a mental remembrance to receive the whole of Christ–it takes reconnecting Christ’s one offering in our own time on our altars.
 
In English, the words memory, remembrance and *commemoration *have general been used. However, the Greek term is anamnesis, which does not have the same connotation of a past historical event, but means that the past event is made present simultaneously in all times and generations, without regard to chronological time.
 
SMHW said:
People have been posting all kinds of links but I’m not sure anyone directly stated that our modern day usage of the word “remembrance” falls far short of what Christ was actually saying.

It is my understanding that that Christ’s words indicate the Jewish understanding of the Passover. This kind of remembrance is not the mere recollection of a past event. It is bringing the past into the present. It’s kind of a merging of time.
Click to expand...
Chatter163 said:
In English, the words memory, remembrance and *commemoration *have general been used. However, the Greek term is anamnesis, which does not have the same connotation of a past historical event, but means that the past event is made present simultaneously in all times and generations, without regard to chronological time.
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Exactly.

Anamnesis means that the event of the past is being experienced by those who take part in it now. It does not mean merely remembering an event; but living it right now.
 
edarlitrix said:
Hi, I have a question about the Eucharist.

If it is the real body and blood directly present with us, why does Jesus say “do this in *memory *of me” in the gospels? This implies absence of the real thing–namely Jesus–rather, you have *impressions *of its past presence on your mind.
Click to expand...
The Greek anamnesis is much deeper than the mere English “memory”. “Memory” is weak, in that it tends to cover only mental recall. Anamnesis is more than that: it means the event being recalled is in a mysterious, mystical way made present. The equivalent Hebrew is zekhar, or zikkaron, which means pretty much the same thing.

This illustrates the very correct principle that reading the Bible in English is like watching your favourite TV show in black-and-white. Reading it in the original languages brings it out in full colour.
 
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