In a previous post,, I have dealt with the popular claim forwarded by some Catholic apologists (e.g., Robert Sungenis; Peter D. Williams) that the Greek term translated "remembrance" or "memorial" in Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24-25 (αναμνησις) means "memorial sacrifice," and, therefore, the Eucharist is itself a propitiatory sacrifice, commensurate with Roman Catholic dogmatic teaching on the Mass. Max Thurian, in his work on the Lord's Supper (the "Sacrament" in LDS nomenclature) offers the following on the meaning of αναμνησις vis-a-vis the institution narratives of the Lord's Supper in the New Testament, which is spot-on:
Douglas Jones seems disturbed by those writers who accord the word “memorial” a primarily sacrificial meaning. In this I am in agreement with him. The twofold meaning of the word must be emphasized, in that it can mean both a recalling to men and a recalling to God, in praise and supplication. When it is applied to the Eucharist, the term means first of all the presence of the divine activity on behalf of His people, as a recalling to the believer, and the presence before God of what He has done in the course of the history of salvation, as a recalling in praise and supplication. The term memorial also has a secondary meaning which refers to the sacrificial understanding of the Eucharist. It does not have this as its primary meaning, but when it is used of the Eucharist it shows how and in what sense it can be conceived as a sacrifice, i.e. only in the sense that it is an act of proclamation, a memorial before men and before God, a presence and an actualization of the unique sacrifice of Christ. (Max Thurian, The Eucharistic Memorial, Part 2: The New Testament [trans. J.G. Davies; London: Lutterworth Press, 1961], 81 n. 1)
