Anamnesis

"He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'" 1 Corinthians 11:24

The word St. Paul used for "remembrance" in this verse is anamnesis, which is the Greek word made up by mnesis, meaning "pertaining to memory", with the prefix ana- meaning both "back" and "anew." Therefore, we are not just remembering the Last Supper as something in the past but living it anew every time we celebrate the Eucharist. From an Orthodox perspective, communion is not just a symbol (consubstantiation) or even a miraculous change in substance (transubstantiation) but rather our being present at the Last Supper by partaking of bread and wine that the Holy Spirit changes in a mystery to become the Body and Blood of Christ. The disciples themselves, in the presence of Christ in the flesh, were partaking of the same Body and Blood, which doesn't make any sense and will not make any sense in human logic because their participation was the same mystery that we participate in through anamnesis.

This concept of anamnesis is not restricted to just the Eucharist but extends to all liturgical services - on Palm Sunday we enter Jerusalem with Christ, on Good Friday we are witnessing His Crucifixion, on Easter Sunday we are present for His resurrection from the dead, and so forth. In addition, if whatever we do is done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) then anamnesis is a summary of everything we do as Orthodox Christians - not just liturgically and Sacramentally, but even in the every day humdrum of our lives. In His incarnation, Christ blessed our whole existence. When we eat, we can eat in remembrance of Him who ate; when we run, we can run in remembrance of Him who ran; when we sing, we can sing in remembrance of Him who sang. In this way, everything becomes a sacrament.

This begs the question, then, “if everything is a sacrament then what difference does it make if I go out for brunch instead of going to the Good Friday service to celebrate Christ’s life giving death on the cross?” If we see our participation in the life of Christ as a relationship, then the weightiness of the events in which we share with Him will have an effect on the depth of that relationship. Just as with our human relationships, going through a difficult time together makes you feel closer to each other. If all we expect to see with Christ is happy times, then we are like Judas who was willing to go with Him to the throne, but not to the cross. Maybe we can’t really fool ourselves into thinking that going to brunch is the same as going to church, but are we not “bringing the brunch to church” when we ask for the liturgy to conform to what we want it to be rather than submitting to it in whatever form it may come?

This is an excerpt from To Believe in Jesus by Sister Ruth Burrows:

"I have often heard it said that young people, and no doubt others who have not tried to understand its inner meaning, find mass boring, even distasteful. It is essentially the mystery of faith and nothing can substitute for faith. It cannot be interesting on the purely natural level but only when faith lights up the action from within. Undoubtedly everything must be done to ensure that the liturgy is carried out as perfectly and as beautifully as possible but everything must be at the service of faith. The ceremonial, the singing, everything must aim at illuminating the inner meaning of the mass and our share in it. Anything extraneous has no place in the celebration. To turn mass time into a sacred concert, or a prayer meeting, to make it too lively and interesting, with things to do and rollicking songs, is a disservice. It is substituting for the effort of faith. It is mere entertainment loosely connected with the mass, aimed at arousing emotion and keeping attention. One would want proper emotions to be aroused but only in the context of faith. At the same time, we must not be dependent on emotion and must be prepared to enter deeply into the mass whatever our feelings. Here too is the occasion for 'fast'.

"If we really know what the mass is, we won't be too disturbed when things are not to our liking. Tastes differ and it will be impossible to please everyone. After , all, we are celebrating sacrifice and it would be rather odd if, in the name of offering sacrifice, we insisted on having things our way and showed annoyance and resentment when our wishes were not considered. It is of the essence of our surrender to God that we surrender to our neighbour too ; it is largely, almost entirely in surrendering to our neighbour that we surrender to God."

This passage helps to frame for me the ongoing discussion we are having in the Coptic Church about how to make Orthodoxy accessible for an American congregation. We are trying to find a balance between the “needs of the people” and our liturgical Tradition, but the needs of each person will be different, so chasing this vision of a “relevant church” will always be a moving target. Rather than asking how we can conform the Church to fit the desire of the people, perhaps we can ask how we can increase the understanding of the congregation to have it conform to the Church and the richness of its Tradition. The practicalities will still be challenging, in that we still need answer some questions related to the role of 1) culture, 2) language and 3) hymnology. In answering these questions, however, the end goal cannot be “how do we get more people to come?” but rather “how do we get more people to participate in the anamnesis of the life of Christ?” One element in that anamnesis is the Christ-like sacrifice of going to a service even when we do not feel that it is fun, or interesting, or directly relevant to us personally, but we see how it may benefit our fellow parishioner.
 
If we believe that God is with us, we must believe that he is guiding all things towards the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). He will do so for each of us, individually, in both the mundane and the sublime. He will do so for His Church, as whole, in both the short term and in the long term. May He help me never to forget that He is present in all things and at all times.