"Anamnesis is fundamental to understanding our own place in the Church. How many people who witness a marriage remember their own marriage at the ceremony? Or who attends a funeral of a friend or loved one and does not consider his or her own mortality? A constant sense of remembering brings to the forefront the reality that we are fully members of the Body of Christ who are being formed and shaped into the likeness of Christ. Once we stop remembering who we are, we stop functioning as members of the Body.
The Christian concept of remembrance stems from the ancient Hebrew understanding of the word, which means to make present. At every Passover meal the father of the house recalls the Exodus story and the deliverance that the Lord performed for his people. The act of remembering the Exodus story makes present Gods saving power in today’s world. Similarly, at every Baptism we are called to remember our own Baptism, and the prayers and symbolic actions once again become powerful for us. The people of God must identify ourselves with the child in the font, for just as he or she is accepting a new birth of water and the Spirit, so too are we accepting the same rebirth in our own lives: the coining of Christ to exorcize the demons from our lives, receiving sanctification and redemption through the baptismal waters, being clothed with the white garment of purity, accepting the call to walk in newness of life."
+ Fr William C. Mills, "Church, World, and Kingdom: The Eucharistic Foundation of Alexander Schmemann's Pastoral Theology" (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2012) 58-59.
