Do this in remembrance of me. What does it mean to remember? The word that we have from the Gospel today actually comes from the Greek word anamnesis. Anamnesis is a word that has multiple meanings that can’t quite be translated into one word in our language. One meaning is remembrance, while another is to make present; that when we call to mind these events when we enter into these events as our Lord commanded us, He becomes present. Our Lord Jesus on the night before He was betrayed said, “This is my body, this is my blood.” There’s no ambiguity in that word. It truly is His body and it truly is His blood and if our Lord Jesus is saying this who are we to understand it differently or translate it differently? That is what He is saying: “This is my body, and this is my blood.” Then He says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He is making Himself present and then He is asking us to enter into and to carry this forward.
I want to share a few memories I have of loved ones and some of the keepsakes I have of them.
First is my grandmother Marcusik, my mother’s mother. My grandmother was one of the most endearing people in my life from the time that I was a child, so loving and so present whenever we were with her. When she got older, she developed Dementia and Alzheimer’s and then she went blind. She had a stroke in each eye, and she was completely blind. The thing is my mother, and her two sisters were there all the time with her and even on Halloween they would still dress her up. Sometimes they would dress up as nuns, all four of them, and sometimes they dressed up as angels, all four of them. My grandmother had this little pendant of an Angel. After she died, I never liked to ask people for things, I just said, “If there is anything that nobody else is taking, could I have something? This had been handed down to my aunt and after she died my relatives asked if there was anything I wanted and I chose this Angel because it reminds me of my grandmother and those wonderful memories I have of her.
The second one is my grandfather, my father’s father. He always wore this medal scapular and towards the end of his life and as he was getting ill, my grandmother (his wife) had died.
I had spent that summer volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity in Washington DC and my job was to take the men downstairs in the morning. These men were homeless and disabled and I had to bathe them and to wash them. I’d never done anything like this. For me it was at first very uncomfortable and then a very beautiful experience and every morning I would do that. I would take 12 or 15 of them and bathe them and shower them. At the end of that summer when I came back home, my grandfather had begun to decline and wasn’t able really to take care of himself. So, there was one point where my mother finally said to him, “Would you let Michael bathe you?” He was very uncomfortable at first, but I said, “Grandpa, I just spent the entire summer doing this, it’s going to be OK. I took him into the shower and as I began to cleanse him, I noticed the scapular that he had on. It was then that I learned that he never took it off, even when he showered. He wore it all through World War II; he wore it all of his life and he never took it off. After he died the family, maybe because I was the priest in the family, gave this to me and I treasure this medal as I remember him and think about him.
The third one is my spiritual director, who I had towards the end of the seminary and for most of my years of priesthood. He died a couple of years ago. Whenever I would go for spiritual direction with him, he always held this black crucifix in his hands and when I would go to Confession or be having a difficult time sometimes, he would hand it to me, and I would hold it. When he died, the priest in charge of his estate, this time I did ask, I said, “You know if there’s one thing of his that I really loved and if no one else is taking it, I would love it.” I told him about this crucifix, and he said, “He’s being buried with it.” I said, “That’s OK.” Then he said, “Well I’m not letting him go with it. He’s staying up here anyway so if you want it, you can have it.” I’ll never forget that at the funeral that morning, I thought should I just go take it out of his hands? I told the Funeral Home people, probably 3 or 4 times, please don’t close the casket until I have the crucifix. It was beautiful because they gave it to me right before they closed the casket and I got to hold it during the entire funeral Mass.
Afterwards, I didn’t know that it(the crucifix) opened, there was this thing on top that you turn, and it turns out that it’s a reliquary. If you don’t know what a reliquary is, it holds the relics of the martyrs, and I never knew something was in there. I opened it up at the end and I looked at it and there’s not one bone but there are 12 and it’s the relics of the apostles. Little pieces of their bones, of all of them, including Saint Matthias. I knew what a treasure it was, but I had no idea what a treasure it was.
All these keepsakes are so beautiful to me, but they can’t bring them back. I don’t know if you have any keepsakes like this, but it reminds me of them. Also, there’s still pain of their loss and that they’re not here in the same way anymore.
In the Eucharist today Jesus leaves us, He gives us, His very body and blood. I’ve never had a twinge of sadness that He’s not here, Jesus, because He is here and when I consecrate the bread and wine and it becomes the Body and Blood, it’s only Joy because He is present. He is right there in our midst and I’m able to experience Him in a way that I don’t quite get to experience my loved ones yet here on earth.
As we celebrate these wonderful mysteries of remembrance of the anamnesis of the calling to mind of Our Lord Jesus, He is present with us, there is no tinge of sadness because He is right here in this very Body and Blood. All of our loved ones that have gone before us, we believe that if they’re with the Lord and the Lord is here then they are here in a way and when we receive Him, in there with Him, our loved ones are within us in a deeper way than they ever could have been here on earth. There is no sadness in the Eucharist because it is the sheer presence of our Lord.
On this wonderful day, this great Feast of Corpus Christi, may each and every one of us experience it in a new and a deep and profound way: His presence in the Body and Blood; His revealing himself as being with us as we celebrate these great and sacred mysteries of our faith.
