An odd sort of remembrance

Dan brought me on awhile ago, and now, after much needed badgering, I'm finally getting around to writing stuff. I love studying liturgy, and the studying the Eastern Churches. I'm currently working on some posts concerning the 20th century reforms of the rites of the Latin Church, but I just wanted to start with an unrelated very interesting note.

A huge part of the theology of what goes on during the Eucharistic prayer (and the whole liturgy, really), is the idea of anamnesis. 'Remembering' in English doesn't quite give us the full sense. This is a sort of recalling and remembering that actually makes present- now- the event recalled (or, better yet, makes us present to the event). Anamnesis is the Greek term used when Jesus says in the various Last Supper accounts, to 'do this in memory/remembrance of me'.

Remembering is crucial to the Jew and the Christian. It can be seen to stem from the scene in Exodus where Moses pleads with God to remember his covenant, to remember the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so that He will relent and not destroy His people, Israel. In asking God to remember, we recall the covenant ourselves. We recall all that God has done for us, and recall how we have far from lived up to our end of the bargain.

An important part of most Eucharistic prayers then, is the act of recalling the great events of our salvation.

For instance, here is the version from the modern translation of the Roman Canon (aka Eucharistic Prayer I in the Missale Romanum):

"[Preceded by the words of institution]
Father, we celebrate the memory of Christ, your Son. We, your people and your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory; and from the many gifts you have given us we offer to you, God of glory and majesty, this holy and perfect sacrifice: the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation."

Or from Rite I of Holy Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer:

"Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son our Savior Jesus Christ, we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same."

Everything I have said up to now is really just prefatory information. Now, on to the Really Neat Thing!

In the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, during the anamnetic part of the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer), we find the following :

"Remembering, therefore, this command of the Savior, and all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming, we offer to You these gifts from Your own gifts in all and for all."

Notice anything odd? Anything particularly different from the other two?

Let's look at the sentence taking out all the stuff that gets in the way of noticing this little oddity:

"Remembering, therefore...the second, glorious coming..."

Whaaattt?? How can we remember something that hasn't happened yet? How can we remember the future?

Partly because there's a certain already/not yet tension going on, for in the Eucharist Christ has come again to His people.

But the bigger reason seems to be that there is truly only one liturgy, the heavenly one, and all others are an inbreaking of the eternal liturgy into a particular time and place. For Christ has ascended to the Father and dwells in eternity, where all is present to God. Mystery!!!!

On a side note, in Eucharistic Prayer IV, which is modelled after an Eastern Anaphora, we get the following:

"Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand; and, looking forward to his coming in glory..."

Which, needless to say, just isn't as awesome....

Week of Christian Unity: Day 6 on Day 6 (7, sort of): The Orthodox and Ecumenism

Here when I say the Orthodox I mean the Eastern Orthodox, not merely adherents to the historical orthodoxy of the Christian faith. For a quick rundown of Orthodox perspectives one can see the Orthodox Wiki's page. Following the links on this page eventually led me to a major Catholic-Orthodox venture in dialogue which was claimed to be the oldest regular venture of its kind in the world, and which has a webpage hosted on the site of the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops of America (SCOBA), which you can find here. As I type this I am running short on time, so my brief bits of research led me to this short agreement from 1974 about the church. These are things that the two oldest branches of Christianity are, at least hopefully, finding themselves in agreement on. One thing that's kind of interesting to do is to read over the lists and see how many items (of the ones that apply to more than just the Orthodox and Catholics) you agree with. The list definitely gets more specific as it goes along, but there are some that seem more vital to an understanding of Christian unity from any perspective, most notably:

2. The church is the communion of believers living in Jesus Christ and the Spirit with the Father. It has its origin and prototype in the Trinity in which there is both distinction of persons and unity based on love, not subordination.

It's an interesting set of agreements. Check it out.