Again with the "We must become better Jews"
27 February 2020
Bible Sunday! How S Paul would have approved!
The Gospel reading of which I wrote*** in this January post is also the Gospel for today in the Old Missal.
Yes; we used to have 'Bible Sunday' in the C of E, on Advent II, because of the opening of the Epistle reading for that day (in the Tridentine Rite and the Book of Common Prayer). Now we are to have Bible Sunday in the Catholic Church on Epiphany III ... or, in Bitcoincurrency, The Third Sunday In Ordinary Time (how grand that sounds!). And a Year of the Bible!
And this commemoration comes along near Holocaust Memnorial Day.
I think that day is a splendid one to select. ***In the old rite it offers us the fascinating passage S Matthew 8: 1-13. This ends with the Lord remarking that the Centurion whose pais/puer He has just healed at a distance had a faith such as He had not found in Israel; for many will come from East and West to recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom, while the huioi/filii regni will be cast into the outer darkness; the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
This passage was expurgated from the Novus Ordo Sunday Lectionary; possibly it was felt that here was "Q-material" which would be covered elsewhere. But it is a fine passage, and I urge even those who will attend a Novus Ordo celebration to take it seriously.
What is interesting is that S Matthew's Gospel is often regarded as showing marks of use in a very Jewish-Christian context. Yet it is this Gospel which makes the very Pauline point that all depends on Faith, Pistis. The Centurion is praised not because he was a Gentile: far from it. The 'Sons of the Kingdom' were not cast out because they were Jews; far from it. For each, Faith, Pistis, or the lack of it, is the key. How fitting that this passage should be given to us to study in the same few days in which we celebrate the Conversion of S Paul! The theme is also Johannine: "He came unto his own, but his own received him not. But to those who did receive him ..."
These three writers were of caourse, all ethn.ic Jews; Jews absolutely soaked in their Scriptutres and in the Jewish way of life.
And it needs to be remembered that it is into this Jewish inheritance that Faithful Gentiles are admitted. To them is made the wonderful offer expressed by Pope Pius XI in the phrase "We are all Spiritual Semites". * We all need to become betterJews!! Above all, we must weed out the assumption that what we call 'the Old Testament' is only a sort of course of background reading for the New Testament. Remember that for the Disciples and for the Gospel Writers and those who penned the Epistles, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings were their only Scripture. They are still by far the largest part of Christian 'Scripture'.
I commend to those who desire to have reading commended
(1) Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger; and
(2) Lovely like Jerusalem by Aidan Nichols.
Yes; we used to have 'Bible Sunday' in the C of E, on Advent II, because of the opening of the Epistle reading for that day (in the Tridentine Rite and the Book of Common Prayer). Now we are to have Bible Sunday in the Catholic Church on Epiphany III ... or, in Bitcoincurrency, The Third Sunday In Ordinary Time (how grand that sounds!). And a Year of the Bible!
And this commemoration comes along near Holocaust Memnorial Day.
I think that day is a splendid one to select. ***In the old rite it offers us the fascinating passage S Matthew 8: 1-13. This ends with the Lord remarking that the Centurion whose pais/puer He has just healed at a distance had a faith such as He had not found in Israel; for many will come from East and West to recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom, while the huioi/filii regni will be cast into the outer darkness; the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
This passage was expurgated from the Novus Ordo Sunday Lectionary; possibly it was felt that here was "Q-material" which would be covered elsewhere. But it is a fine passage, and I urge even those who will attend a Novus Ordo celebration to take it seriously.
What is interesting is that S Matthew's Gospel is often regarded as showing marks of use in a very Jewish-Christian context. Yet it is this Gospel which makes the very Pauline point that all depends on Faith, Pistis. The Centurion is praised not because he was a Gentile: far from it. The 'Sons of the Kingdom' were not cast out because they were Jews; far from it. For each, Faith, Pistis, or the lack of it, is the key. How fitting that this passage should be given to us to study in the same few days in which we celebrate the Conversion of S Paul! The theme is also Johannine: "He came unto his own, but his own received him not. But to those who did receive him ..."
These three writers were of caourse, all ethn.ic Jews; Jews absolutely soaked in their Scriptutres and in the Jewish way of life.
And it needs to be remembered that it is into this Jewish inheritance that Faithful Gentiles are admitted. To them is made the wonderful offer expressed by Pope Pius XI in the phrase "We are all Spiritual Semites". * We all need to become betterJews!! Above all, we must weed out the assumption that what we call 'the Old Testament' is only a sort of course of background reading for the New Testament. Remember that for the Disciples and for the Gospel Writers and those who penned the Epistles, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings were their only Scripture. They are still by far the largest part of Christian 'Scripture'.
I commend to those who desire to have reading commended
(1) Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger; and
(2) Lovely like Jerusalem by Aidan Nichols.
Dear Father What is the source of your continuing plea that we become better Jews?
What Saint, Ecumenical Council, Papal Encyclical, Universal Catechism etc made a similar plea?
Where in The new Testament is the passage(s) calling on us to be better Jews?
You also cite the Evangelists and those who wrote the epistles as only having access to the Old Testament but you do not mention The Holy Ghost who inspired them.
And you cite the race of the New Testament authors but Jesus Himself denounced the faithless jews who called Abraham their Father that the Devil was their father; thus, racialism is not a legitimate category vis a vis Jesus.
And then there is the mention of Holocaust Memorial Day and the putative Q material...
This is all quite radical and novel
* Pope Pius XI is rarely quoted in context. Here is what he said:
Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we [Christians] are all Semites
And, of course, Jesus told those who appealed to racialism as their bond of righteousness (the descendants of Abraham) that because they refused to accept Him as Messiah, they were the children of the Devil
