Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Normally, I read through all the three readings once early Monday morning to prepare for the upcoming Sunday. Only last week, I picked up the readings and got stuck on the very first word – “Remember.” May be because the mother of one of my friend has dementia, or because I have been in touch with another parishioner whose father has Alzheimer, I have just been a little more conscious how important memory is. Those who take care of people with decreasing memory say that it is like dying a little every day.
When God commanded Moses to ask the people to ‘remember,’ it is very clear that in some way, this memory had something to do with life itself. Because very soon after the very first command to remember, God would say again, “Do not forget….” What is it that the Lord did not want the people of Israel to forget? Moses said to the people, “Do not forget the Lord, your God,” and this included all that the God accomplished for them in their journey from slavery to freedom. God was referring to the Covenant he made with them. Almost five thousand years later, Jesus would ask his disciples to do something similar. He took bread, broke it, gave it them to eat; then he took the cup, gave it them to drink and then he said, “Do this in memory of me.” This was the New Covenant that God made with us through Jesus.
In preparation for this homily, I did some research on memory. Scholars tell us that there are different kinds of memories. Scholars talk about episodic memory v/s semantic memory, explicit memory v/s implicit memory, retrospective memory v/s prospective and unconscious memory v/s conscious memory. The most significant of these, as I read it, is the conscious memory. It involves “a deliberate, effortful remembering of traveling back in time and reliving an experience.” Remember… do not forget… participation… they all mean the same thing: it is by reliving the memory of Christ that we have life. Without this reliving we are dead both in the temporal and eternal sense.
I would to offer three points for us to reflect upon. Each of these three points in some way are connected to remembrance.
1. Remembrance as a reliving
I want you to think of the first Christmas, Thanksgiving, or birthday meal that your family may have had after the death of a mother or father. I know of families that, for example, remember the person for years with the dish associated with him or her. Families either make the dish the person made or serve the dish the person liked. By doing this they not only remember the deceased person but it is a way of living their memory. In some ways, the person comes alive in this ritual. Remembrance at mass is also remembrance by doing, by performing actions, not just by mental recall. We do what Jesus did at the Last Supper with the bread and wine, that is, taking, blessing, breaking, sharing. By doing this we engage in a deliberate, effortful remembering of traveling back in time and reliving the experience of the Jesus meal. In our actions Jesus comes alive. In our remembrance, Jesus becomes real.
2. Remembrance as a participation
There is difference between the meal in memory of our beloved and the meal at the Eucharist. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament context for the remembrance is the Covenant. Participation in the Passover meal was a participation in the Covenant. Jesus goes even further at the Last Supper. As Paul would say in today’s second reading, The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? This is one thing we cannot do as human beings; like Jesus we cannot say, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life… “We cannot say to each other, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him… the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” Think about this; our drinking from this cup and eating this bread becomes a participation in the very life of God. When we receive the body and blood of Christ we become parts of the body of Christ. We become one with Christ; we become Christ.
3. Remembrance as Retrospective and Prospective memory
In my discussion about the different kinds of memory, I mentioned retrospective and prospective memory. Retrospective memory refers to memory for the past—we reflect back and recollect what has happened to us. Prospective memory refers to a situation in which the focus is on the future; how we remember to do things in the future. The Eucharist is an eternal celebration in which the past and the future come together in one eternal present. As far as the past in concerned, the saving death and resurrection of Jesus comes alive in the Eucharist. As far as the future is concerned, in the very same mass anticipate our life with God for which Christ said, “This is my body; This is my blood.” In one act of remembering we capture the past, the present and the future.
Today as we gather to remember, as we gather to relive the memory of Christ, as we participate in the body and blood of Christ, as we capture the past, present and future in this simple bread and this very plain wine, let us pray that we can enter into the depths of this memory. May our participation in the body of blood of Christ, bring us to eternal life, now and forever. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph