Right. Why not? How can it hurt, after all. The Roman Catholic Church owes its birth to Jewish theology, history, tradition and the revelatory brilliance of its ancient and scholarly text-writers in holy scripture. Without the revelations brought down through posterity by these theological academics of ancient times where would the Church be?
Ah, lest we overlook that all three of the central icons of Roman Catholicism are of Jewish derivation, let us recount the ways of indebtedness. Yahweh, that sacred spirit of Jewish monotheism, for one; a young woman of Judaic descent for another; her son who acquired great compassion and empathy for humankind, one of many scholars of Jewish derivation, for another.
So while recognizing with great regret that the Jewish religion has had the great misfortune to lose its way on the road to the future, the Roman Catholic Church exercises great compassion and exhorts its faithful to pray daily for the redemption of the Jewish souls, lost to eternity because they cannot and will not recognize the one true faith.
Ecumenism has lost its way. So sad. No longer one God worshipped by all, in slightly variant ways, sacred and beloved by all, and legitimate and authentically true nonetheless. We can still be friends, cannot we? We can overlook the arrogant presumption. It is, after all, only human nature. We are all, as humans, fallible.
No, the Church will not welcome the return of the Latin Mass encouraging Catholics to pray for the conversion of "the perfidious Jews". That's rather passe. And certainly not conducive to good relations. Fidelity to the absolute truth of the one true faith also ensures courtesy toward those whose lack of awareness and faith cannot guarantee them eternity.
"Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God that they may continue to grow in the love of His name and in faithfulness to His covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption."
Now that's spiritual kindness of the first order, is it not? Yet we remain thankful that the Church in its current incarnation is capable of appreciating the signal importance to it of the Hebrew Scriptures, the difficult yet illustrious place of Jewry throughout history, and above all, the evils of anti-Semitism.
We forgive you.
We think, therefore have no faith. We pray, therefore faith is present.
Labels: Religion, That's Life
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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