How we can receive more from the Mass – 23 (Do this in memory of me)

What is a memory?

That may seem an elementary question, but I suspect that it may be a deeper question than it first appears.

Some memories are trivial with no potency, having little or no effect on us in the here and now.  Yet other memories can be very powerful indeed and, even many years later, affect us viscerally. 

The trauma of PTSD is caused by the re-living of a traumatic memory – the sufferer is re-entering the very events that caused their condition.  That memory is alive in the present, re-lived and embodied in the symptoms of PTSD.

For a more positive example, I recall watching a film where a couple who were going through marital difficulties attended a wedding ceremony of mutual friends.  As the ceremony progressed, they were both reminded of their own wedding – they re-entered and re-lived their own wedding and the vows that they made.  Unnoticed to others, one reached down to the left hand of the other, and caressed their wedding ring.  Their reconciliation was triggered by the potency a memory.

This second understanding of memory is very much present in the Passover meal for Jews still today.  During the Passover meal, the child asks the father certain questions, such as, “Why is this night different?  Why do we eat unleavened bread and roasted lamb.”  The father replies, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” (Exodus 13: 8)  This shows how each Passover celebration, no matter how many centuries after the original Exodus event, involves active participation in the events that are celebrated – those celebrating the Passover are spiritually and very powerfully involved in that very Exodus from Egypt. 

Similarly, when Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me,” he was inviting us, he is inviting us, into that upper room, and to the foot of the Cross where the Lamb of God was sacrificed.