2 August 2023
"OUR GLORIOUS JEWISH HERITAGE"
I received what I can only call an explosive comment on my use of some such phrase when I was singing the praises of our Holy Martyrs the (glorious) Maccabees.
I think the writer should consider prayerfully the opening paragraph of chapter 9 of Romans.
This heritage is the inheritance of every Christian, whether Modern Rabbinic Judaism likes the idea or not.
I am unwilling in future to give consideration to any comments which may be offered by this source.
1 August 2023
Maccabees
An advantage in the the current Roman legislation regarding the "Extraordinary Form": it is currently legal, on August 1 to say Mass of the Maccabees.
This is very important. This celebration was the only relic on the Roman Calendar of the old principle that the History of God's People, "Old Testament" and "New Testament", is a continuum. There is no break. Abraham, as the Canon of the Mass insists on 363 days of the year, is our Patriarch; our great forefather. Lauds and Vespers both proclaim his importance in their 'Gospel Canticles'.
There is no theological reason against having "Old Testament" figures on a Catholic Calendar. The local Calendar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has them ... because, there, they are local Saints. One of the joys of helping out at Lanherne is that the old Carmelite Calendar provides "Old Testament" figures in large numbers. Then, of course, there are the Eastern Christian Calendars.
So why the dearth of "Old Testament" names in the Calendar of the Church of Rome? Because, in the earlier centuries, Church dedications so often related to relics (a reason why there are so few churches dedicated to our Lady from before the Council of Ephesus). And the relics of the Maccabees are, indeed, in Rome.
"But the Maccabees were not martyrs for Christ". But they were. They were martyrs for the Torah, and the Man from Nazareth was, is, the Wisdom and Word of God, which means, the Torah. "Christ now stands on the Mountain, he now takes the place of the Torah", as Rabbi Neusner interprets S Matthew. "Jesus understands himself as the Torah -- as the word of God in person ... [he claims to be the] Temple and Torah in person", comments Joseph Ratzinger. (I have emphasised before the importance of the middle volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, pages 103sqq, Ratzinger dialoguing at length with his friend Rabbi Jacob Neusner).
Witnessing to the Torah in those days before the Torah stood among us Incarnate, the Maccabees are His martyrs. Secondarily, of course, they are the perfect paradigms of the numberless martyrs of the early Christian centuries ... and of our own.
The confectors of the Novus Ordo frankly admitted that the Feast of the Maccabees is of extreme antiquity, and, indeed, universality. But they wanted to put S Alfonso on August 1, and they bound themselves by their own silly fetich not to have "Commemorations". So they left the Maccabees "to local calendars".
Oh yeah?
You might think, therefore that in the Novus Ordo local calendar "Pro clero almae urbis eiusque districtus, typis polyglottis Vaticanis MCMLXXIV" might have the Maccabees. Er ... No ...
You'd never guess whose name appears at the bottom of the Decree authorising this supplement. It begins with B.
I think it's time somebody raised a great cry: "The Novus Ordo is anti-semitic".
It deprives us of a vivid reminder of our glorious Jewish heritage.
Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...
Dear Father. What is our glorious Jewish heritage?
Is Jewish a racial identity or a spiritual identity or perhaps both?
"Pope Alexander VII had the ivory-covered chair )Of Peter) put into the gigantic bronze cathedra, with the statues of the Doctors of the Church, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine of the Roman Church and St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom of the Greek Church. The religious significance is extremely clear. The Doctors of the Church were always consistent with Peter's teachings as they expounded theological doctrine."
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#Chrysostom_Against_the_Jews
It used to be very difficult find a link to what St John Chrysostom had to teach about the Jews because "anti semitism" and St Ambrose was publicly contra Jews as was St Athanasius (Jewish encyclopedia castigates him for opposing Arius...Jesus is for Athanasius not only the true and real Son of God, but he is also of similar essence (homoüsios) and of like eternity, but in such fashion as to permit of a duality of the divine personages. This, of course, is contradictory not only to the ruling idea of strict monotheism among the Jews, but also to the teachings of the Old Testament; and the Arians therefore rightly asked (ib. iii. 7) how Athanasius could harmonize his doctrine with such words of Scripture as "The Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut. vi. 4); "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me" (Deut. xxxii. 39), and similar passages.)
St Augustine pulled no punches in describing the perfidy of the Jews.
The Talmud is prominent for the Jews...
About the Torah ..The Torah is older than the world, for it existed either 947 generations (Zeb. 116a, and parallels) or 2,000 years (Gen. R. viii., and parallels; Weber, "Jüdische Theologie," p. 15) before the Creation.
About the Talmud..Those who professed Judaism felt no doubt that the Talmud was equal to the Bible as a source of instruction and decision in problems of religion, and every effort to set forth religious teachings and duties was based on it; so that even the great systematic treatise of Maimonides, which was intended to supersede the Talmud, only led to a more thorough study of it. In like manner, the Shulḥan 'Aruk of Joseph Caro, which achieved greater practical results than the Mishneh Torah, of Maimonides, owed its authority to the fact that it was recognized as the most convenient codification of the teachings of the Talmud; while the treatises on the philosophy of religion which strove as early as the time of Saadia to harmonize the truths of Judaism with the results of independent thinking referred in all possible cases to the authority of the Talmud, upon which they could easily draw for a confirmation of their theses and arguments. The wealth of moral instruction contained in the Talmud exercised a profound influence upon the ethics and ideals of Judaism. Despite all this, however, the authority enjoyed by it did not lessen the authority of the Bible, which continued to exercise its influence as the primal source of religious and ethical instruction and edification even while the Talmud ruled supreme over religious practise, preserving and fostering in the Diaspora, for many centuries and under most unfavorable external conditions, the spirit of deep religion and strict morality.
A Jew from Jerusalem unveils what Jews believe and do
https://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/shahak.html
01 August, 2023
Fr. asked me to read Romans 9. I have, repeatedly, but I read it with a doctor of the Church as my guide...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I knew the response would irk him and I knew he could not cite one Saint, Early Church Father, Ecumenical Council, any Papal encyclical etc etc that taught us Catholics have a glorious Jewish heritage.
Poor Father, this was inevitable as he has said Catholics have to be better Jews.
27 February 2020
Bible Sunday! How S Paul would have approved!
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 better Jews!! (My bolding and coloring) 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.
