'Do this in memory of me' - Feast of Corpus Christi

These words of Jesus at the Last Supper, repeated at every Eucharistic celebration appear straight forward and simple yet Christian theology has meditated on them throughout our history. I think that how we understand them depends, among other things, on how we understand being human and how we encounter the Divine in Christ. So, I want to reflect on these words….

‘Do this.. .’

Jesus tells his disciples and us to ‘Do this’. This memorial celebration is to be no mere cerebral examination. We are asked to do something. It is an action. Like all Christian faith it is something that is done and lived out. Life, love, tenderness, care are not only ideas, they are not fulfilled until they are done, acted upon. This may sound pedantic, but I think it is too easy to mistake thought for action and conversely, too easy to mistake action for thought. The Eucharistic remembering is a ritual that is done, not only thought about.

‘…this…’

The ‘this’ of Jesus’ injunction is to take food - bread and wine - in a ritual setting and remember him. His ritual setting was the Passover, a festival deep in Jewish origins and beyond until its origins are lost in prehistory. So Jesus has taken this already ‘weighted’ ritual and invested it with his own meaning.

Rituals are such deep actions in the human psyche and history. We are ritual making species. As I have written elsewhere, I understand rituals and festivals to be periods that take us away from the normal passing of time which takes on a ‘timeless’ dimension. Whatever the ritual, be it family, civic or the festivals of faith, we allow ourselves to enter into a moment that draws past and present and future together.

The rituals of sharing food lie deep in the human community, to be used among other things to show gratitude for a harvest or commune with the dead. However, think about our own special meals, particularly those we prepare ourselves for others. Now, I love cooking for friends and while it certainly is about a modicum of skill there is a ritual quality to the meal. It is sharing with the guests what I have and the what and the how will always reflect to some degree who I am and who they are and who we are to each other. But this is no self-satisfying closed circle. All this carries us forward to the future and other relationships we have. Now, when all this happens in a particular ritual context the many meanings are brought into a sharp focus. So Jesus, at the Passover celebration turned all these meanings into his own loving self-gift for us to enter into his life and who he is and therefore discover who we are.

‘…of me.. .’

The ‘me’ of his injunction is Jesus - human, divine, self-giving, life affirming who gifts us with this food and memory.

At that Passover meal, he gives himself, he invests the bread and wine with new meaning which is himself at the most ‘intense’ moment of his life when death was imminent - the final fidelity. However, to take this moment out of the context of his whole life and identity is to impoverish the love-gift which only came to be understood after his Resurrection. Now, if we understand that all creation exists in a web of life, in the risen Jesus that life is renewed and given a new and vibrant quality. So the ‘me’ we are remembering is Jesus in the fullness of who he is in this web of life, therefore we also know who we are, our identity in Him.

‘…in memory.. .’

We are told to ‘Do this in memory of me’. I think of the long theological and devotional history of trying to understand this gift and command. To the Jewish people the remembering in a ritual made the great power of God manifest in a particular historical event present for those remembering now. It was not some vague wishful thinking. It was allowing God who is beyond history to act again to save and nourish in the now.

I think this is not unlike our own human memory. For us memory makes present people and events in our past whether it is our individual history or a collective history. Those memories to a great extent make us who we are as individuals and as a community. If my memory of aspects or people of my past are negative, it will fill me with pain and prevent me being free, whole and loving person. This sort of memory calls for a journey of healing and forgiveness. The memories of love given and received by family and or friends, gives me strong identity, makes freedom, courage and love grow. Either way, identity is shaped and acted out.

So for us, memories are very, very real. To lose our memories whether personal or collective is to forget who we are and therefore unable to act in the present or create a future. I think the Jewish people had the right understanding.

So ‘..in memory of me.’ is no nostalgic, wishful-thinking past event. The love and fidelity which led to death and resurrection is active, vivifying and transforming now and each time we tell the story, share the bread and wine we know who He is and who we are in him now, at this moment is the world’s history.

Finally

Sometimes I think that theology can become forgetful of our ordinary human processes. For us humans memory gives us identity, can treasure the joy of a past moment to real strength in the present; sharing food with friends is more than sustaining the body, it is nourishing spirit by sustaining identity and building bonds of life; and finally, when we love it always has to be shown, that is, done, otherwise it can’t be sustained.

To say that the Christian life is essentially Eucharistic means that ‘Do this in memory of me.’ speaks to every moment of our lives because it is the truth of who we are and therefore how we are.

So Jesus, who loved to the end and beyond, gave us the gift to so that he could abide with us in a most tangible way. In these terms, the Eucharist is not so much ‘Godhead here in hiding’, as showing forth the great mystery that God-with-us wants to stay with us until we come, all of us in this web of life, to the fullness of joy in the End.

Until then, ‘Do this... .’ is not mere repetition. Each time we celebrate Jesus’ memory we enter into the life of God now, at this present moment and we know who we are. It is always new, just as each time friends meet it is new because of the joy and the deepening of that friendship and the history and truth we bring to each other.