Do This in Memory of Me

At sundown next Wednesday, April 8, Passover begins.  Our God has always been a sacramental God.  That is, He inscribes His Word not only on our hearts and in our minds, but also in our flesh -- in the things we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel.

Passover is the prime and defining moment of God's action in history -- to take for Himself a people no longer enslaved by the things of this world, but free to worship and enter into communion with Him.  At the moment of release from slavery and subjection, He instituted a "memorial" ritual -- the Passover Meal, to be kept not only that night, but in memoriam, in perpetual memory and celebration.  During the Passover Meal that fateful night, the Jews had to do three things, and they had to do them standing up, feet shod, and ready to leave Egypt forever.  They had to feast on an unblemished lamb; they had to eat unleavened bread; and they had to taste bitter herbs.  This 'eating and tasting' would be repeated every year as long as Israel continued in existence.  In later years, this meal would be much more than a "memorial;" in fact, it would re-create the experience of the Jewish ancestors who left Egypt.  The eating and tasting would make present to modern-day Jews the bitter experience endured by their fathers and mothers, and the saving action of God on their behalf.

Even more than a memorial, this ritual meal would make present today the saving action of God to those who participated in it. "Everyone who sins," Jesus said in John 8, "is a slave to sin.  But if the Son of Man sets you free, you are free indeed."

To "remember" in the Biblical sense brings the past event into the present -- the past, present, and future are all united in the biblical notion of zikaron, remembrance.  For Catholics today, to receive the Eucharist is to participate in the saving action of Christ's death on the cross and His Resurrection from the dead.  We are not "remembering" His action; we are living it.  We are in communion with Jesus Christ as He hangs on the cross, praying for us to His eternal Father.  We are one with Him as He rises from the dead, never to die again.  His divine energy flows through us as He remains at the Father's right hand, receiving all that the Father wants to give us.

At the Last Supper, the institution of our Passover, Jesus told the disciples, "I want you to be with Me where I AM."  Where HE IS.....God.  And we indeed ARE with Him in the Presence of the Father, no longer in slavery to sin and the values of this world.  We are free to worship God, just as the Jews were free to worship Him at Mt. Sinai.

God 'remembers' His people --- us!  That means He is acting on our behalf.  As we receive communion with His only Son, we receive the Divine action in ourselves.  So much more than a "memorial;" rather, a reality that words cannot express.