JORAS - Nigerian Journal of Religion and Society

Memory; to remember is central, not only to the Christian religion but to the catholic tradition in general. Incidentally what it means “to remember” in the religious sense is often downplayed in our Christian journey today. The normal thing is to use the medium of memory to connect to events which de?ne religious identity and form personality. This, however, is hardly the case. Rather participation in religious ceremonies and events are treated more as psychological, emotional or simply cerebral, having no bearing to the connection with the constitutive event in order to shape personality. A look at how early Christianity dealt with its religious memory shows that memory was not just psychological or emotive; it was formative and that the liturgy was at its center. Borrowing from Judaism, from which Christianity can never be separated, Christians recited scripture, passed on tradition and practiced the imitation of the virtuous and virtues in a way that in?uenced the formation of their personality. How we could learn from this is the focus here.

Open Full Text (PDF)