Let’s now consider the * anamnesis in Thanksgiving 2. In the draft form of Thanksgiving 2, which did not make it into APBA 1995, the anamnesis read: ‘Therefore, living God, as we obey his command, we remember his life of obedience to you, his suffering and death, his resurrection and exaltation, and his promise to be with us for ever. … We set before you these gifts of bread and wine. Accept, we pray, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.’ Evan Burge, a noted Australian Anglican theologian and liturgist, heavily involved in the development of these liturgies wrote these words. He argues that ‘the sense of the ancient verb for ‘we offer’ (Latin offerimus, Greek προσφ) may be expressed by ‘we draw near to you with this bread and cup’ or ‘we bring before you this bread and cup’’ thereby suggesting that the words ‘we set before you these gifts of bread and wine’ are really an offering or oblation. This argument is strengthened by the next line which suggests that the request for God to accept the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving refers back to the ‘setting before’ God of the bread and wine. This statement of oblation is more realist than any expression found in Thanksgiving 1, or indeed in any official eucharistic liturgy of the Anglican Church of Australia, and as such was unacceptable to certain viewpoints within the General Synod of 1995. It was significantly modified in the final form of Thanksgiving 2 in APBA of 1995 * to become: ‘Therefore, living God, as we obey his command, we remember his life of obedience to you, his suffering and death, his resurrection and exaltation, and
comes again’. This is not as strong as the Prayer of Consecration in the 1662 BCP which says * that it was Christ who ‘did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until he coming again.’ Sunday Services make no mention of continuing a remembrance (as Common Prayer does) or continuing a perpetual memory (as the 1662 BCP does). * Sunday Services does say however: ‘Hear us, merciful Father, and grant that we, who eat and drink this bread and wine, may remember his death, and share in his body and blood’, at least suggesting that the remembering is happening at the time of eating and drinking. * Common Prayer expresses this in a more realist manner, saying: ‘Hear us, merciful Father, and grant that we who receive these gifts of your creation, this bread and wine, according to our Saviour’s command, in remembrance of his suffering and death, may share in his body and blood’. Here the reference to gifts is specifically noted as ‘this bread and this wine’ and linked to the remembrance of the Saviour’s command, although the sharing of the body and blood seems to be associated with the reception of the gifts more than the gifts themselves. Common Prayer suggests a realist link between the gifts or signs of bread and wine and the remembering of Christ’s death. The act of eating and drinking the bread and wine does not necessarily have any realist link with the remembering and the sharing, apart from the fact that the act of eating and drinking seem to be occurring at the same time as the sharing in Christ’s body and blood, that is, their reception.