Eucharist and the "Danger of Memory"

The title to this post might seem a bit odd for the reader and give cause for a tightening of the eyebrows but let's have a brief look at what I mean by it. Within the Eucharist we have two sorts of memories taking place at the same time. One is the ritual memory and the other is the existential memory. The existential memory, that is living sacramentally, verifies the ritual memory of Jesus' death and resurrection. We find this clearly within Paul's writings when he discusses baptism and within John's writings at the foot-washing in his Gospel. Jesus is not merely giving us an example when he washes the feet of the disciples, through the Eucharistic gift of himself, he is really giving us the power to act as he did. He gives us the ability to verify the ritual on the altar. This is a gift that is given not simply an example.

The Church is maintained by mutual service to one another as well as worship. There is much liturgical reform discussion that goes on around the blogs presently and I believe this is right and important. But the Church is maintained not only by the renewal of the ritual but of the existential as well. For example, to wash the feet of one another is to live out the memory of Christ that is lived out ritually when the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered. It was Metz who said, 'It is precisely because the ritual memory sends us to the existential memory that the sacraments in general, and the Eucharist in particular, constitute a "dangerous memory."' I really like the way Chauvet has put it when he says,

It is dangerous for the Church and for each believer, not only because the sequela Christi ("following of Christ") leads everyone onto the crucifying path of liberation (as much economic as spiritual, collective as personal), but because this "following of Chirst" is "sacramentally" the location where Christ himself continues to carry out through those who invoke him the liberation for which he gave his life. The ritual story at each Eucharist, retelling why Jesus handed over his life, sends all Christians back to their responsibility to take charge of history in his name; and so they become his living memory in the world because he himself is "sacramentally" engaged in the body of humanity they work at building for him.

It seems to me that the above quotation gets to the heart of the eschatological movement in the Mass where we capture the existential memory of Christ that is the verification of what happened ritually on the altar. Ritual memory without the existential is an unverified memory of Jesus' death and resurrection. It seems to me that the gift of the ritual memory gives us, not only an example, but the power to existentially do as Jesus has done for us. That seems to me to be what the Gospel was about this Easter Sunday 5.

For each of us individually and corporately to become the living memory of Christ in the world is to act in the way Jesus acted ritually. When we connect the ritual and the existential memory we come to see the value of the Church for the world as Sacramentum. Liturgical/ritual reforms alone will not bring to the world what it needs. The reform of ritual memory and existential memory is the evangelisation of the world that verifies the power given to us by Jesus to act in the way that he acted.