Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Whether it is in the explicit form of the old Tridentine Mass or in the softer language of the NovusOrdo Mass, the spirit and intent is the same - to pray for the conversion of the Jews. Why? Because we love them as our elder brothers and as those whom Jesus loved first. And out heart aches for their long-suffering and the persecution they experience for being God's first chosen ones. And we also pray for them because revelation tells us our prayers will one day be effective. In The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, by Steven Paul, their conversion is described as well as the place God has prepared for them in the "New Heaven and New Earth".
Some Passages From Chapter 24:
Note that the names of the twelve tribes are written on the "gates." This suggests a special honor will be bestowed upon the Jews, for they were God's chosen nation, his "gate," through which salvation came to the whole world. The text suggests that the leadership of the Church will be given to them, because they will "sell," i.e., renounce, all that they have, their worldly desires, to "buy" or obtain the "pearl," the wisdom of Christ. Christ was born of the house of David, and He meant exactly what he said, "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.'
4 Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and a master to the Gentiles. 5 Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest not: and the nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. [Is. 55:4-5].
The foundations of the "wall" are twelve, and each is adorned with a specific kind of "precious stone." The "jewels' are symbolic of spiritual things; three of them I have already explained in part two of this commentary. As for the others, I have not yet been able to find their precise meanings. I will neither opine nor speculate. If I find their meanings, I will inform you. Isaiah 54:11-12 contains a description, in part, similar to the one John gave.
Verses 22-27 allude to passages in the Old Testament, such as, Isaiah 60:3, which reads,
"Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance";
or 60:11, which reads,
"Your gates shall stand open constantly; day and night they shall not be closed, but shall admit to you the wealth of nations, and their kings, in the vanguard." [John does not mention "night" because the "millennium" will be unending "days," spiritually speaking]
There are too many to quote, and it is better for the reader to "browse among the lilies," so that he or she may judge how closely John has restated many of the prophecies in the Old Testament.
One fact is made perfectly clear: Israel shall be exalted and glorified in the "millennium," and Jerusalem, especially. It was impossible for me not to receive the impression that Jerusalem will be the center of the Church in the world during that time. The reader must keep before the mind that Chapter 21 describes Jerusalem, in particular, and the Church, in general, the former being understood as within the latter. Since Jerusalem will be the "crown" upon the "mountain," like the "crown" upon the "woman" in Chapter 12, I have concluded what I have concluded about Jerusalem and the Jewish people.
Note: To me, the prayer for the Jews, no matter how worded, is a sign of deep love. It fits within similar prayers for atheists and non-Catholic Christians. It simply reflects an acknowledgement that we believe our religion is the sole basis for salvation. All religions have similar teachings. In the case of the Jews, we have specific affinity and common heritage. It is an article of our faith that the conversion of the Jews precedes the final judgment. The Latin form of the prayer doesn't really depart much from the form we've been using since Vatican II in terms of intent and meaning. In Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation, this is made even more clear. It is spelled out in the Bible.
Jews and the Vatican: A New Clash
Bringing back an ancient rite risked reopening ancient wounds. And so after Pope Benedict XVI introduced wider use of the old Latin rite last year, top Vatican officials promised to adjust a Good Friday prayer from the ancient liturgy that had called for the conversion of the Jews. The text of the updated version - released this week in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano - deletes offensive language referring to Jews' "blindness" and the need to "remove the veil from their hearts." But the substance is left in place: "Let us pray for the Jews," the prayer says, according to an unofficial translation from Latin. "May the Lord our God illuminate their hearts so that they may recognize Jesus Christ savior of all men."
The wounds, according to top Jewish leaders and rabbis, have been reopened. They say the prayer, which in reality had never been scrapped completely, recalls past centuries of forced conversions and a lingering incomprehension of their faith. And while several well-known Jewish voices in New York and Jerusalem spoke of their "disappointment," the loudest - and indeed angriest - response to the revised text came from those closest to home. Late Wednesday, having had 24 hours to absorb the news and study the text, the Italian Rabbinical Assembly announced they were suspending the decades-long Jewish-Catholic dialogue for a "pause of reflection" in light of the Good Friday prayer.
Rome's chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni told reporters that the prayer brings Catholic-Jewish relations "back 43 years," noting that the 1960s Second Vatican Council had spoken of an "alliance" between the two faiths. Di Segni spoke indignantly about reassurances he said he'd received from Church leaders that his concerns about the conversion language would have been addressed. It raises questions about just what is the "image of the Jewish people for the Church," said Di Segni. "It's an old question: What are the Jews doing here on earth? If this [prayer] is the requirement for dialogue, it is intolerable. Evidently, the Church is having problems rediscovering the foundations of its orthodoxy." Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's pointman on Catholic-Jewish relations, responded to the criticism in a Thursday morning interview on Vatican radio. He said great progress has been made in interfaith dialogue with Jews, but it requires that "we respect each other's diversity." "We have much in common, but there's a specific difference. Jesus is the Christ, that means the Messiah, the son of God, and you cannot hide this difference. The Holy Father wanted to say: Yes, Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men, including the Jews. This is said in the prayer," Kasper said. "But this does not mean we have the intention of evangelizing [Jews]. We must give witness to our faith. But in the past the language was with disrespect. Now there is respect." Huge steps forward have in fact been made since the days that Catholics blamed Jews for Jesus' death, and when the original Good Friday conversion prayer spoke of the "perfidious Jews." Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI began to rewrite Catholic teachings, paving the way for John Paul II's historic outreach to Jews, including visits to the central synagogue in Rome and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and his characterization of the People of Israel as "older brothers" to Christians.
Reached in his office in Jerusalem, Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee, a veteran of Catholic-Jewish dialogue, said that he too had his "hopes raised" that an explicit reference to conversion would have been excised. Rosen noted that the expansion of the Latin rite "had nothing to do with this prayer, and nothing to do with the Jews," but was rather an attempt by the Pope to mend fences with Catholic arch-traditionalists. Still, the language of the Good Friday prayer sounds to Jews to be "exclusivist and triumphalist," said the rabbi.
Rosen, who has worked with Benedict since he was a Vatican cardinal, said he worries that the Pope seems to "insulate" himself from top advisers who might alert him to potential fallout. Still, Rosen called his Italian rabbinical colleagues' break in dialogue with Catholics a "rash" decision. "There's so much at stake for Jews and Catholics and Benedict himself that we must ensure that this difficulty will not torpedo the commitment to advancing Jewish-Catholic relations," Rosen said. "Yes, we must speak up. But there is nothing to be gained from making this a casus belli."
Note: It seems strange to me that the way we show our love for our brothers, the Jews, is to remove the language we use to indicate our prayers that they reach the fullfilment of faith in Jesus Christ that our religion says is the path to salvation. Stranger still is that we did it due to objections by Abe Foxman, who neither speaks for the entire Jewish people nor respects Roman Catholicism as can be easily seen from his previous public statements. It seems dangerous to me to revise a liturgical formula at the insistence of someone outside our faith. It is a precedent not likely to be repeated by other faiths. Pope Benedict to reformulate Good Friday prayers for Tridentine Mass
Rabbi David Rosen
London, Feb 3, 2008 / 08:26 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI will modify the Good Friday prayers used in the Tridentine Mass that generated protests from Jewish leaders who found the prayers offensive, the Jerusalem Post reports.
In July Pope Benedict widened the use of the 1962 Latin Tridentine missal in a "Motu Proprio" edict. This missal included Latin prayers for Good Friday that asked Catholics to "pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ," asking God not to "refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness."
After the Pope permitted the wide use of the Tridentine Missal, Abraham H. Foxman, United States director of the Anti-Defamation League, criticized the prayers. In July he said he was "extremely disappointed and deeply offended" by the use of what he called "insulting anti-Jewish language" that would "now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words." According to the Jerusalem Post, Foxman said the reintroduction of the Latin prayers was a "theological setback in the religious life of Catholics and a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations."
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel also wrote the Pope expressing concern.
In a July interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire, Archbishop Angelo Amato denied the Good Friday prayers were anti-Jewish. The archbishop said Catholics pray first for their own conversion "And then we pray for the conversion of all Christians and of all non-Christians. The Gospel is for all."
On January 18 the Milan newspaper Il Giornale reported that the new text of the prayers would drop all references to the "blindness" of the Jews. The Pope has reportedly drafted a new prayer that will be released in time for Holy Week in March.
Rabbi David Rosen, chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, told the Jerusalem Post that the removal of references to the "darkness" and the "blindness" of the Jews for refusing to recognize Jesus as the messiah was a sign Pope Benedict was "deeply committed to advancing the relationship with the Jewish Community."
Rabbi Rosen said the July Motu Proprio had nothing to do with Jews, saying there was confusion about the concept of conversion. "Used in the sense that Archbishop Amato uses it, it does not mean the acceptance of the Christian Faith by a non-Christian," he said, according to the Jerusalem Post. Rosen said that his Vatican sources indicated that the new text does not call for Jews to accept the Christian faith. Like a common 1970 prayer used by the Church, he said it "prays for the physical and spiritual well being of the Jews."
The Vatican would not confirm the Il Giornale report.
