Br. Peter Damian on the Living Remembrance: Last month, on July 13, about five hundred people gathered at the Abbey of New Clairvaux for the Eucharist Camino event, hosted by the Sutter Buttes Deanery in the Diocese of Sacramento. The event highlights a year of Eucharistic Adoration and hospitality throughout our Diocese. A number of volunteers arrived early that morning to join the monks in welcoming guests, an important part of our tradition according to the rule of St. Benedict: “Welcome guests as Christ.” Above all, the parishioners joined the monks in celebrating the Eucharist. The focus was on Jesus Christ who gathered us together around the Eucharistic table. Each time we participate in the Eucharist, we hear the echo of Jesus’ mandate at the Last Supper before His Passion: “Do this…, in remembrance of Me” (1Cor 11:25b). This mandate was primarily entrusted to Jesus’ apostles, but it is also passed on to all of us because his mandate invites us to faithfully continue the Eucharistic celebration, participating in this great mystery of Eucharist. “Do this…, in remembrance of Me” means that when we repeat this ritual, we commemorate Jesus’ Passion, death and resurrection.
However, this phrase could suggest another meaning: “Do this into my mind or into my remembrance.” In other words, when we partake in the Eucharist, God remembers the “New Covenant” that Jesus Christ had established in his blood. In the Old Testament, “covenant” was a form of binding agreement between God and his people. Through this covenant, God made known to them his love and mercy for them. In “New Covenant,” the blood of Jesus Christ has become the pledge of his love and mercy upon God’s people. God remembers his promise to his children when we repeat what Christ has commanded his disciples. In the Magnificat, Mary proclaims that God remembers his mercy according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1Cor 11:25b).
Thank you for reading,
Br. Peter Damian.
For pictures of the Camino event at New Clairvaux:
https://www.stmparadise.net/_files/ugd/98eb0f_839dc313462d4863a6cefd3b2f99ac7e.pdf
