What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
What is a Covenant?
"Covenant" is a key word in religion that is used at the most solemn moment of the Mass, the most solemn form of worship. But I dare say that 99.99% of Catholics who attend Mass faithfully and have heard the word thousands of times do not have a clue as to its meaning. In order to save yourself embarrassment should you ever be quizzed about the word, please continue reading.
A covenant is an agreement, a contract, or an alliance. The word did not begin life as a religious word, but a political or legal one. Covenants would be entered into between a great king and his vassals. It usually called for the fulfillment of certain obligations expressed in an I-you form (as is the case with the Ten Commandments). The covenant, which was not necessarily voluntary for the vassal king, was struck and sealed by means of sprinkling on the contracting parties the blood of some animal offered in sacrifice to the gods. This ritual which seems ghoulish to us had deep meaning for the ancients. The sacrificial blood symbolized that the contracting parties would rather die like the animal than violate the terms of the covenant and also that the parties became like blood relatives with their lives intertwined from that point onward. The god to whom they offered sacrifice was supposed to be the guarantor of the covenant by sending curses on the violators and blessings on the loyal.
The covenant document was usually kept in a temple and there was some provision for reviewing it on an annual basis. The vassal had the obligation of appearing before the great king once a year to give an account of how faithful he was in paying tribute to the great king according to the terms of the document. The legal institution of the covenant formed the framework for the Sinai Covenant between God and the Israelites.
At Mount Sinai in the Arabian Desert God offered a covenant to the Israelites that made them his Chosen People (Ex. 19:5-6). The covenant said, in effect, "If you keep my commandments I will be your God and you will be my people." For their fidelity God would give them a homeland and great blessings. Unlike most covenants of the day the Israelites were free to reject it, but they agreed to it (Ex. 19: 8). The terms of the covenant were spelled out, principally in the Ten Commandments in I-you form. This covenant was sealed with the blood of some young bulls that had been sacrificed. Half of the blood was splashed on the altar representing God and the other half was sprinkled on the people, the other covenanting party. By this act God and the Israelites became one, blood relatives so to speak. Other provisions called for annual renewal, establishment of a priesthood, various sacrifices, observance of religious feasts especially that of Passover commemorating their liberation from the Egyptians. This combination of creed, code, and cult or worship constituted a church or religion. So the Sinai covenant was the establishment of a Church by God, his original Church. The root meaning of the word "church" suggests that is an assembly of people called out, in this case called out from among the Gentiles. The Sinai Covenant is called today the Old or Former Covenant, or more often the Old Testament, which means the same thing. Sometimes the prophets would compare the covenant to a marriage in which God was the bridegroom and the Israelites the bride (Is. 54:5). When Israel fell into idolatry the prophets branded their infidelity as adultery. The establishment of the Old Covenant is an extremely important event in salvation history. God was intervening in history and he would achieve salvation through the Israelites.
Many covenants are described in the Old Testament scriptures. They usually had four elements: (1) a party with whom God was covenanting; (2) a promise; (3) a sign; and (4) a test of the covenanting party. Thus there is the covenant with Adam and Eve. The promise made to them was to increase and multiply. The sign was the blessing by God. The test was to avoid eating the forbidden fruit. The covenant made with Noah also had the same parts. The promise was not to destroy the world again by flood. The sign was the rainbow. The trial was a test of Noah’s trust in building the ark. God made a covenant with Abraham and promised that he would be the father of many nations. The sign of the covenant was circumcision and the test was the command to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The Sinai covenant was made with the Israelites. The promise was "I will be your God and you will be my people." The sign was the Sabbath observance and the test was the trials in the desert. God made a covenant with Jesus. The promise was a long-lived seed. The sign was his baptism. The trial was his temptations and obedience unto death.
At the Last Supper the Son of God made a new covenant with the members of his Church. The promise was eternal life. The sign was baptism into the Blessed Trinity. The trial, as it was for Jesus, is temptation and obedience unto death. The blessing was not a geographical space as it was for the Israelites but a heavenly homeland. This New Covenant was sealed not with the blood of some animal but with Christ’s own blood present under the appearances of wine at the Supper and offered in sacrifice at that time. Whenever Catholics hear the word "covenant" used in the consecration of the wine at Mass they should be aware that they are renewing their covenant with Jesus who established a new People of God. In the Eucharist they receive they are sprinkled with Jesus’ sacrificial blood. They should say at that moment as the Israelites did, "All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do."
