“If memory serves,” I sometimes say, which puts my wife on alert. Is my selective amnesia (from the Greek ἀ-  “without” and μνήσις “memory”) about to kick in? Maybe, but even so I’m the family archivist. Blimey! Who gets assigned to foraging in our archives, fittingly located in the shed behind the garage?

But it’s not just “stuff” that needs retrieval. Words, too, are getting lost, and what they mean. The provocative philosopher Thomas Nagel, now 87, once remarked that he’d “lived long enough to watch the language drift away from him.” (If, gentle reader, you dare to say, “I could care less,” he’ll cite you for linguistic complicity. If you persist and say, “I can’t help but think he’s a fussy word maven,” he’ll add a contempt citation.) Note well: the current drift carries language away not just from Nagel but from its nourishing roots as well.

At 39 or so, I’m at a safe distance from 87. But my upcoming “wellness check” will include a memory test. Last year the nurse asked me to remember “Apple, banana, carrot.” Ten minutes later I came up with “Avocado, bandana, and Cheetos.” My misremembering became part of my medical anamnesis (from the Greek ἀνάμνησις “reminiscence”), that is, my personal medical history. Which history, I’ll add, was duly forwarded to my physician by the nurse amanuensis (with the Latin roots ab “from,”  manus “hand,” and –ensis “place”) who had transcribed my words.

Casting about for linguistic roots and what they mean can be a prelude to philosophy. Indeed, at this point, we might reflect on Plato’s theory of anamnesis. He proposes that learning is a coming to remember what one has forgotten. Learning is a retrieving. On Plato’s view, the soul is immortal. So, too, is the knowledge within it. But the soul undergoes a process of reincarnation in the course of which knowledge becomes obscured. The task of the philosopher, akin to that of the midwife, is to elicit innate knowledge by asking strategic questions. Enter the Socratic Method!

But let’s turn from philosophy to theology, more specifically to liturgical theology. In her Eucharistic liturgy, the anamnesis serves as a statement by which the Church embraces the memorial character of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. It returns to Jesus’s words at the Last Supper, “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:24-25).

In the Roman Canon, the words of consecration lead us to this anamnesis:

Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants, as also Thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed Passion of the same Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, and also His Resurrection from the dead and His glorious Ascension into heaven do offer unto Thy most excellent Majesty of Thine own gifts, bestowed upon us, a pure Host, a holy Host, an unspotted Host, the holy Bread of eternal life, and the Chalice of everlasting salvation.

In the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom we find this beautiful language:

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, Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all.

The Church understands the anamnesis as far more than a simple remembering. Rather, in the anamnesis we actively enter into the ongoing drama of our redemption. We enter into Christ’s saving death and resurrection as it is now present in the Eucharist.

As I was putting this blog post together, a Jehovah’s Witness couple I know knocked on the front door. They have an invitation for me. Their flier reads, “You are invited to a Memorial of Jesus’s Death.” There’s a picture, too, of people chatting and shaking hands. Fellowship, right? Nice enough, but as thin as theology gets. Torn roots, lost meaning.

What to say to my visitors? I thank them for stopping by. And once again, I recall the lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins: “The Holy Spirit over the bent world broods with warm breast and with Ah! bright wings.” The world is surely bent, yet the Spirit will carry us forward if we live our lives in the Eucharist…and Pentecost.