Daily Archives: 2012/04/07

Before beginning this post in earnest, I’d just like to mention something about the above picture. It depicts Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, which overlooks the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. That’s where I also went to school in my umpteen years of post-graduate studies. It’s situated in the West Bank. I used to walk through the West Bank to get there and back, being on a first name basis with the Palestinians. But now there’s a wall. I find it all so very sad. This makes my proposed book on the would-be sacrifice of Abraham’s son all the more pressing for me. Anyway…

As time goes on, I discover, to my joy, what an idiot I’ve been, that is, because such a recognition only comes about because of seeing a bit more clearly Him who is Truth and Charity. There is, after all, quite a contrast!

(1) One of the ways I’ve been an idiot has been to wonder about the appropriateness of the apologies expressed by Blessed Pope John Paul II. You can read about my rather fortuitous conversion to the deeper realities of the Church and the economy of salvation regarding those apologies in what I wrote in a post I could easily re-title as YIKES! In my humble opinion, that post is well worth the read, again, not because I’m so briliant, but because, before the Lord, I found our how stupid I was. If you read that post, you’ll quickly find out that what I say is not liberal drivel, but instead is a rather intense traditional Catholic evangelization.

(2) Another way in which I’ve discovered just how much of an idiot I’ve been regards the Good Friday prayer for the Jews.

• I’ve been a ferocious defender of the old prayer for the Jews in the Missale Romanum pre-dating Blessed John XXIII’s intervention. The reason for this is my rather freakish desire to know what words meant back when they were first used, so that perfideous referred, way back in the day, many centuries ago, merely to a lack of faith in Jesus.
• I’ve also been a ferocious defender of the Blessed John XXIII’s intervention, what was presented in the 1962 Missale Romanum. O.K.!
• I’ve also been, quite consistently I might add, a ferocious defender of Pope Benedict XVI’s revised prayer for the Jews for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

Here’s Father Z’s comparison of the last two versions back in 2008 (read the rest there):

I could go on forever about how incisive the new prayer is for the Extraodinary Form of the Mass, perhaps much more so than the old (against unthinking reactionaries), but I’ll let that go until another day. You can read, if you like, a conference on a study by Benjamin Leven, which he presented to Boston College back in 2010. Benjamin’s an old friend. We spoke much of this topic: Pro iudaeis - On liturgical change. He also spoke of the Novus Ordo, but I would like to add some of my own comments on the validity[!] of the Novus Ordo prayer in this post.

I’ve always been less than enthusiastic about this version of the prayer. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind about anything I’ve ever always thought. It’s just that I’ve more recently applied what I already knew about Catholic-Jewish relations to this prayer in a rather in-your-face manner. That’s a good thing, and, if you read the rest of this post, you’ll find out that what I have to say is not ambiguous liberal drivel, but instead is a rather intense traditional Catholic evangelization…

Here’s the Novus Ordo version:

Oremus et pro Iudaeis, ut ad quos prius locutus est Dominus Deus noster, eis tribuat in sui nominis amore et in sui foederis fidelitate proficere.

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui promissiones tuas Abrahae eiusque semini contulisti, Ecclesiae tuae preces clementer exaudi, ut populus acquisitionis prioris ad redemptionis mereatur plenitudinem pervenire.

Here’s the new ICEL translation:

[1] Let us pray also for the Jewish people, [2] to whom the Lord our God spoke first, [3] that He may grant them [4] to advance in love of His Name, and [5] in faithfulness to His Covenant.

[6] Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants, [7] graciously hear the prayers of your Church, [8] that the people you first made your own [9] may attain the fullness of redemption. [10] Through Christ our Lord.

[1] Just to say, praying for the Jewish people is not an act of hatred, like we don’t want them to exist anymore just because we want to share with them the greatest love in our lives! This isn’t a threat. It’s a manifestation of our love, and even an invitation. It’s a good willed intercession with our Lord.

[2] “Spoke first”, though not differently, in the sense that the Jews proclaimed the coming of the Messiah whom we accept as the Jewish Messiah. First Jews, then Gentiles. Fine. But, it’s always about Jesus.

[3] “Grant them…”tribuat… This doesn’t mean that the Lord isn’t doing anything. He is the One, after all, who is supplying the grace with the granting. This is what lifts the veil to that the faith, already having been provided, might be seen. This “grant them” bit simply recognizes that we also have free will.

[4] “To advance in love of His Name.” This name is Yahweh, He who is, He who causes to be. That is always an apt Name of the Most High. I’ve written a great deal on this elsewhere, but that comment suffices here. There is no bid here for the Jews to remain non-Christian. But, just to say, if “Name” has its reference in “Jesus”, which name means Savior, who is identified with the Messiah, then the prayer is more explicitly for conversion to the Savior we have already accepted has come among us. That Savior and Yahweh are identified. Indeed, in the New Testament citations of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, references to Yahweh are consistently translated with Kurios, that is, Lord, the usual title of Jesus, as in: the Lord Jesus (Yahweh Jesus).

[5] Most of the controversy about this prayer is over the covenant mentioned here. The advance is wrought by the action of the Lord’s grant of grace, which, in turn, is provided according to the prayer being offered. (Sorry, B.L.!) The idea of advancing in faithfulness to a covenant does not speak of multiple covenants, but of a new covenant which fulfills the old. We are not saying that there is a covenant for the Jews, just as valid today as it ever was, and a covenant for Catholics, that New and Eternal Covenant in the Blood of the Lamb, which however, excludes all Jews, and accuses them of not being faithful even to the first covenant they had. No, not that. Instead, the old covenant is fulfilled in the new. The essential nature of the old was to be fulfilled in the new. When the new arrived, the old ceased to exist outside of its being fulfilled in the new. Any advance in faithfulness would mean converting to the fulfillment of the old in the new. If there are two covenants, both active, both efficacious, then there are no covenants at all, for the two cancel each other out. That is just how much the old is essentially fulfilled in the new.   

[6] “Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants…” We are all descendants of our Father in Faith. He looked forward to the Messiah, to Jesus. In this sense, Catholics are fulfilled Jews.

[7] “Graciously hear the prayers of your Church…” Again, it isn’t evil to pray for others that they might know the greatest love of one’s own life.

[8] “That the people you first made your own…” Again, we are that people by way of faith. Also in the Jewish Scriptures, one could become Jewish by way of faith. Being Jewish is not tied absolutely to physical descendency, nor is the prayer trying to say that. It is speaking about those who looked forward to the Messiah before Jesus came.

[9] ”May attain the fullness of redemption…” Everyone is redeemed. Some of those who are redeemed are also saved. An important distinction. We pray that all Jews might know salvation, which is the “fullness of redemption.”

[10] ”Through Christ our Lord.” Just in case anyone was wondering what kind of prayer this was. This phrase proclaims that this is all the will of Christ, our Lord. Amen!

I don’t agree with the reasoning of the promoter of the changes, but the stands on its own apart from him. Having said that, here’s what he said:

Click to enlarge. Careful of the column changes from bottom all the way to the top!

I’m not getting more liberal! Just a bit calmer! That’s a good thing!