Jews, Christians, Saints

 

This Twitter thing is proving to be most useful!  As you know I signed on a few weeks ago and it has kept me informed (minute to minute) of what is going on.  It also gives me links to interesting articles, and thanks to David Quinn today I read a very good article by a Jewish rabbi.  Rabbi Yitzchok Alderstein is writing about the persecution of Christians and he believes that we are now more persecuted than the Jewish people.  The article can be found here.

 

The rabbi is correct.   Christians are now the most persecuted religious group in the world, and that persecution is being ignored by the mainstream media and even some social justice groups. Why?  I suppose because what we believe is not politically correct for one thing, but also because Christianity is also being persecuted by secularists in the West, of which many media outlets are ideological supporters.  While the rabbi concentrated on Islamic persecution of Christians - it is only part of a larger "pogrom" against orthodox Christianity.

 

For one thing you need only look at the coverage of Pope Benedict's pontificate.  If ever a man had a reason to sue he had.  If he wanted he could take western media groups to the cleaners because of lies, insinuations and outright libel.  Of course those in the media know Christians strive to forgive, and so count on our adherence to that command of the Lord.   Poor media savvy among Church officials also means false articles are not rebuked as vociferously as they should be.   Of course such a defence would be difficult given the success secularism has had with ordinary people - many still believe what they hear in the media.  It is hard to overcome ideological stereotypes - the Jewish people know all about that.

 

On another topic - just to let you know our new series of Forgotten Heritage will air on EWTN from the 9th of this month in the US (the UK/Ireland and European airings will be later - I have no date as of yet).  Entitled Forgotten Heritage: Europe and Her Saints Fr Owen and myself look at some of Europe's great saints.  This series is a little longer than the first two - there will be sixteen episodes (it's Lent - offer it up!).   We hope to present a little taste of the holiness which flourished throughout European history, and while we try to be representative with only sixteen programmes and so many saints, we did not get everyone we wanted in. 

 

For your information here is the list of programmes and the saints.  We start with five programmes on the Patrons of the Europe:

 

1.    St Benedict, Patron of Europe

2.    SS Cyril and Methodius, Patrons of Europe

3.    St Bridget of Sweden, Patron of Europe

4.    St Catherine of Siena, Patron of Europe

5.    St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (St Edith Stein) Patron of Europe

6.    St Columbanus

7.    St Thomas a Becket

8.    St Francis

9.    St Dominic

10.  St Thomas Aquinas

11.  St Thomas More

12.  St Teresa of Avila

13.  St Margaret Mary Alocoque

14.  Pope St Pius X

15.  St Therese of Lisieux

16.  St Gianna Beretta Molla

 

Every time I look at that list I see names we should have included, ah well.  We were trying to cover most areas of human life and Christian experience - priests, religious, laity, missionaries, teachers, government figures, professionals, husbands, wives.  I suppose there could be another series on the saints to cover others.  If you have any ideas let me know.  In the meantime we are planning the fourth series.  

 

While the series can only be viewed on TV in the US, you can get it online at EWTN's website; the first programme airs on Saturday 9th March at 4pm (GMT).

Israel's Chief Rabbis Speak For Life

An interesting article to bring to your attention today, if you have not read it yet.  The two Chief Rabbis of Israel have issued a letter to all rabbis urging them to condemn abortion, describing the killing of the foetus as murder.  Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, timed the letter to coincide with the reading in the Sabbath liturgy in the Synagogue of those verses in the Book of Exodus which tell of the killing of the Hebrew children in Egypt, and it seems the two Chief Rabbis are quite strong in their denunciation of abortion.

This is a welcome move, and one which proves yet again that abortion is not a "Catholic issue", but rather a human issue.  The rabbis see the devastation abortion is bringing to Israel as a million and half Jewish children have been killed in abortion clinics in Israel since 1948.   Speaking in religious terms, the rabbis believe that this massacre may well be delaying redemption for the Jewish people.

God bless these rabbis and may he continue to give them strength to proclaim the Gospel of Life, and we can only hope and pray that Jewish men and women around the world will listen to them.  Apparently the Chief Rabbis of Israel are very influential around the world, so let's hope they touch hearts and minds.  Indeed I hope our Jewish TDs and senators will listen to them and resist the government's intention to legislate for abortion.  How I wish our Catholic TDs and senators would listen to the leaders of our Church and oppose the legislation.

HHS Mandate: A Jewish Response

A quick post to bring a few items to your attention.  More civil suits are being filed against the Obama Administration, again more people are realising that the HHS mandate is not a contraception issue, or even a Catholic issue - it is an issue of religious freedom.

Here is an interesting article by a Jewish writer, David P Goldman, and he's saying that the Jews should challenge this mandate also because Obama can just as easily try to dismantle Jewish religious freedom as much as Catholics's.  They are coming for the Catholics now, the Jews could well be next, he says. 

Goldman mentions a few areas which may fall under scrutiny: kosher slaughter, which has already been banned in some countries; matrilineal descent for deciding who is a Jew - a British court recently decided that it is not up to the Jews to decide who is and who is not a Jew - as if that court had the competence to decide.  And of course, circumcision.  That last one will go if homosexual lobbies have anything to do with it - there is a gay fetish about "intact men", so some gay groups are waging war on circumcision.  If Obama is listening to them, he could well try and outlaw the sign of the Covenant among the Jewish people.   It seems our Jewish brothers and sisters could find themselves back in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes again!

Perhaps Israel's influence might prevent this from happening, given that Israel and the US are allies.  But that is not certain either - there are those in the Democratic party who want to see an end to that relationship and a more decisive shift to the Palestinian cause. 

However, there is an opportunity here for a greater cooperation among Christians and Jews: they can stand together on this issue to help each other.  A prayer to Blessed John Paul II and to St Moses might be a good idea - remember in the Catholic Church we honour the Jewish prophets as Saints: time to invoke them for the Church in these times and for our Jewish brothers and sisters.

St Edith, The Bridge Builder

Today is the feast of St Edith Stein, or St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross as she is known in Carmel.  Here in Europe we celebrate her feast as a patron of the continent.  Yesterday reflecting on Blessed Clemens von Galen we saw great courage in a bishop who put his life on the line to preach the truth and condemn the anti-human and anti-Christian beliefs and practices of Nazi tyranny.  Today we celebrate the life and witness of another who stood up to Nazi oppression albeit in a different way.

There are many things in St Edith's life which merit deep reflection.  The story of her conversion rivals that of St Augustine and Blessed John Henry Newman.  Her difficult journey to faith is marked by graces and intellectual triumphs which brought her to the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila which led her to finally submit to Christ. 

Her intellectual life and contribution to philosophical thought also demand our attention, though she is difficult to read and her writings may not be accessible to many.  There are scholars who believe that she was the one who put shape on Edmund Husserl's philosophy, phenomenology.  Her writings on women and their role not only in the Church, but in life, are revolutionary and challenge the atheistic radical feminism which has reduced women to a parody of men.  St Edith's work here needs to be studied and may indeed form a firm foundation for a theology of womanhood.

However it was her death which was the most glorious moment of her life.  As a Jewish woman - a Jewishness she did not lose with her conversion but, as she constantly reminded people, a Jewishness which came into its own with her embracing Christ - she came to share in her people's fate offering her life in union with Christ for their sake.  "Let us go for the sake of our people" she said to her sister Rosa when they were arrested: Edith understood what she was being called to do: to suffer with her people, with the Chosen People who, under atheistic Nazis, were sharing in the cross of martyrdom.  St Edith, like Christ, is a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, and so too her death.  She was martyred for being Jewish and for being Christian, and so we rightly honour her as a martyr.  But we must also see, through her, the martyrdom of her people and this martyrdom of the Jews we must also honour: they died for the Old Covenant - a people whose very existence as the Chosen People aggravated atheistic Nazism.  I believe in order to understand the assault on faith by the Nazis we must link the martyrdom of Jews and Christians - the Old and New Covenants - as, in a sense, one martyrdom in which we see atheistic materialism's attack on faith and its attempt to wipe God from the face of the world and from the hearts of its peoples.

This assault continues today, and so St Edith's life and death has an important message for us.  First she teaches us that we must trust in God - he knows what he is doing and so we must abandon ourselves to his will.  Secondly she sought to fulfil her vocation even in the midst of an assault on her faith - she let nothing disturb her as St Teresa teaches us.  Thirdly, when she heard the call to a radical offering she embraced it immediately.  Her life of prayer and dedication to the God of her ancestors, to Christ, gave her the freedom to go.  She was prepared to make an oblation of her life for the sake of her God and her people. 

In these difficult times, may St Edith assist us and help prepare us for whatever God will ask of us even if it means embracing the cross for his sake and for the sake of our brothers and sisters, and yes, even for the sake of our enemies - that they may not be lost.