In the last few issues of this article, I have been dealing with the concept of ANAMNESIS, that underlying idea which is the foundation of our worship of God. It is this actualizing memory of what Jesus did before He died.

One liturgical scholar, Dennis Smolarski, cites three Biblical verses, two from the Old Testament, wherein this covenant-anamnesis link is clear. In Exodus 13:8, the LORD instructs Moses: “On this day you shall explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” This covenant by which God had granted Israel “the land of Canaan” (Exodus 6:4) is remembered and applied to the relationship between God and Israel. Then, in the present tense in Deuteronomy 6:28, we read “God brought us from there to lead us into the land… promised on oath to our [ancestors], and to give it to us.”

Like Smolarski, the National (now United States) Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) has argued that “the Christian concept of anamnesis” has Jewish roots and is tied to the covenant theology and worship practice of ancient Israel. According to them, anamnesis in Christianity “coincides with Jewish understanding of zikkaron,” a Hebrew word that is rendered memorial reenactment. Smolarski, however, explains it as remembrance “that makes the effects of [a] historical event present and effective for the believer.”

According, however, to Christian understanding, the covenant by which God bestowed Canaan upon the Israelites, having “struck down the Egyptians” but having passed “over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt”, has not been abrogated. On the contrary, much as Israel has been instructed to commemorate “the Passover sacrifice of the LORD”, Christians make present for all time the salvific and kenotic Passover offering of Jesus Christ. The Pasch of Christ, by which a new covenant is established between God and humankind is not a supercession but the actualization and fulfillment of the ancient covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . As the NCCB’s Committee on the Liturgy notes, “the synoptic gospels present Jesus as instituting the Eucharist during a Passover meal celebrated with his followers, giving to the Passover a new and distinctly Christian memory.

In the Liturgy, we make real, in the present moment, our covenant with God as actualized by Christ, our brother.