I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." [John 13:14-15]      
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A study asks people: if you have a house fire and can only take one thing with you, what would it be? The number one answer is that they’d be sure to take the family photos.

We cherish family photos, because we cherish the memories they hold for us.

When my mother died three years ago, John, Janice, and I were surprised to find not just old photos, but a file folder with a couple telegrams. They were from our father (a young sailor in Hawaii) to his mother after the attack on Pearl Harbor, letting her know that he was okay.

“MOTHER DEAREST AM SAFE STOP GIVE MY LOVE TO THE FOLKS STOP WILL WRITE STOP JOHN MERCER”

In a follow up letter, he tells her not to worry if she doesn’t hear from him, because, if indeed he’s hurt, she’d be notified right away. “No news will be good news.”

Those telegrams and letter are a memory that comes alive. To read them is to be taken back in time, to December 7, 1941. As long as we hold on to those telegrams, my family won’t forget our father’s place in history. We won’t lose that memory. We won’t suffer from a type of amnesia.

Something strikingly similar takes place in this sacred space. Each time we celebrate Mass, we remember what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. That is, Jesus’ death and resurrection is our means to an eternal Communion with God. Whatever might separate us from God or be an obstacle to a life-changing relationship with God, whatever sin haunts us — even death itself — nothing needs to stand between us and God.

Teenagers, here’s my point for you. We choose to remember Jesus’s death and resurrection not merely as an event from 2,000 years ago, but as an ongoing event that’s always present, always active, always putting us in an eternal Communion with God.

We choose not to forget. We choose not to lose that memory. We choose not to suffer from a type of spiritual amnesia.

We hold a memory that we dare not let go of. Call it the life of grace. Call it the Sacramental life. Our Catholic Christian faith comes with a built-in hedge against spiritual amnesia.

For example, we don’t often put it this way, but our baptisms were a funeral movement for each of us. In baptism, we go into the water and rise out of it. We die with Jesus and rise with Jesus. Death no longer is to hold sway over us. It’s not that we were baptized. Instead, we are baptized. The Gospel calls you and me to remember that we are different than we otherwise would be.

And yet, as human beings, we risk forgetting that we live with an Easter faith. This evening, we remember when Jesus first expressed this Easter faith in a ritual of breaking bread and sharing a cup of wine, directing his disciples to continue this ritual in his memory.[i]

And we do so even to this day. In every Eucharistic Prayer, with words shortly after the consecration, the priest always remembers Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. It’s the part of the prayer we call the anamnesis. (Amnesia means no memory. Anamnesis means remember.) Keep in mind that we pray like Jesus did. We pray like Jews at Passover. When they remember being delivered from slavery in Egypt, they are right there with Moses and the ancient Hebrews.

When we break the bread and share the cup of our Salvation, we remember Jesus’ Death and Resurrection as an active event in the here and now. It does not know a date on the calendar. Jesus’ Death and Resurrection comes to us at baptism and continues in the Sacramental life. We extend our hands and say Amen to being in an eternal Communion with God. And Jesus does this for us as our humble servant.

It’s right there in the Gospel we just proclaimed. Earlier in John’s Gospel, we learn that Jesus is the Bread of Life. Then, at the Last Supper, where the other Gospels have Jesus breaking bread and sharing the cup, John instead has Jesus washing his disciples’ feet as their humble servant. Peter objects to having his feet washed, but only until he realizes Jesus merely wants Peter (and all of us) to inherit what he offers us — eternal Life, eternal Communion.

This is why we begin the prayer at the altar by lifting up our hearts in thanks and praise. This is why we call the Sacrament of the altar Eucharist, meaning Thanksgiving.

Perhaps it’s a difficult idea to put our minds around, but with bread and wine, Jesus dies and rises for you and me. Jesus not only washes our feet, but washes away whatever might separate us from God. And, as the Gospel reminds us, Jesus calls you and me to wash one another's feet, too.

We choose to avoid spiritual amnesia. We choose to remember. We choose to follow Jesus Christ, our humble servant.

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[i] Luke 22:19.