What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

The entry on what is happening in Greenvile, NC, was moved.

My friend John Sonnen, former St. Agnes of St. Paul parishoner, now omnipresent resident in Rome, has photos of the ordination of deacons for the Good Shepherd Institute.  The great Archbp. Luigi De Magistris was the ordaining bishop in no less a place than the apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, mother church of the City and the world.

Be sure to go over to Sonnen’s place for the great photos.

Here I are couple.   Note the altar set up in front of the Bishop of Rome’s own cathedra in the Pope’s cathedral church!

Here is a shot from a balcony above the sanctuary.


 

Great dalmatics!

 

 

In comments under another entry I was somewhat tasked with not giving enough attention… well… here is the comment:

David: <b>Too much is being said on this blog about the SSPX not accepting this prayer, and not enough about the far greater number of “mainstream”, non-TLM attending Catholics who have not accepted it for other reasons. Case in point would be the views expressed by Father Lawrence Frizzell of Seton Hall University who called the new prayer a “disappointment”.</b>

Were people to collect examples, with links and concrete texts, references, of this, that could be very useful.  We could post on that!

But frankly, I don’t have time to hunt this stuff down. 

Perhaps we could mobilize the power of WDTPRS?

Now, compare and contrast what Jacob Neusner wrote with what the excommunicated SSPX bishop Richard Williamson wrote.

Part of what Williamson writes, below, is rather interesting.  He makes some good points.  However, he steps over the line. 

My emphases and comments:

True Anti-Semitism

Eleison Comments XXXIV

Most people seeing how Pope Benedict XVI has changed the Church’s Good Friday prayer for the Jews will think he has been their friend, because the change was in a direction demanded by spokesmen of theirs, who made themselves heard. However, for any Catholic who has the Catholic Faith, Benedict XVI has been in this not their friend but their enemy. [There it is, folks.]

The difference is quite simply the difference between our brief life here below, and life everlasting: For purposes of this life, lasting for each of us, let us say, 70 years, he has been their friend, because by, for instance, taking out of the 1962 text the references to the Jews’ "blindness", "darkness" and "the veil over their hearts", he has softened the Church’s solemn criticism of their condition.. On the other hand by the same softening he will also have diminished Catholics’ awareness of how especially Jews need the charity of Catholics’ prayers. [I don’t think anyone who actually reads the new Good Friday prayers can come to that conclusion.  Folks, it is important to seek in the text what the text means.  Seek help of interpretation, of course, but read the texts.  Don’t just settle on what I or this exccommunicated bishop says.]

For indeed from Adam to world’s end, faith in the one and only Redeemer, to come or having come, can alone save any soul from eternal damnation, unless that soul lives without serious sin and is honestly ignorant of the Redeemer. But honest ignorance presents a particular difficulty for the Jews who had all the privileges of the Old Testament to prepare them for the coming of their Messiah, Jesus Christ, and who ever since have had to put "the veil over their hearts" in order not to recognize him in the multiple prophecies of their Old Testament, notably Isaiah LIII.  [Take note of what Williamson does: he places great emphasis on the image of the "veil".  He is saying that Jews really sort of know that Jesus is the Messiah, but they purposely blind themselves to the truth.  For Williamson, they are not honest.  I think that what Jews know and believe about Jesus is more complex.  Still, the poetic image of "veil" does indeed get at this tangled issue in a way, arguably, that the newer prayer does not.  The new prayer emphasized a different point.]

Therefore the recent Good Friday liturgy change, by diminishing Catholics’ awareness of that real "veil", etc, has done a disservice to Jews’ eternal salvation. [I don’t think that the Catholic people will necessarily have to remain ignorant of the "veil", if it is properly presented.] In this respect of the Catholic Faith, Benedict XVI has, objectively, shown himself to be against the Jews purely as Jews.  [This strikes me as being over the top.] Is there any other possible true definition of the expression "anti-semite" ?   [Williamson has just called Benedict XVI and "anti-semite".] Sacred Heart of Jesus, between now and world’s end, grant to your Church many martyrs to die for the eternal salvation of your racial kinsmen, beloved by you ! Kyrie eleison.

La Reja, Argentina posted by Bishop Richard Williamson at 11:41 PM

On the run up to Pope Benedict’s derestriction of the older form of Mass, some Jewish leaders expressed concern ranging from annoyance to hysteria about the prayer for Jews on Good Friday in the 1962 Missale Romanum.  

Some Jewish leaders understand that if Catholics believe as they believe, not praying for Jews would be a far worse offense to Jews.

One Jew who gets this point is Prof. Jacob Neusner.

You might remember him.  He was a key figure with whom Benedict XVI dialogued in his book Jesus of Nazareth.  So, this is someone with whom Papa Ratzinger has had an intellectual, scholarly relationship.

My emphases and comments.  (I am deeply impressed with the clarity of this beautifully written this piece.)

Professor Neusner wrote in Die Tagespost

PRAYING FOR THE CONVERSION OF OUR NEIGHBORS

JACOB NEUSNER

Israel prays for the gentiles, so the other monotheists – the Catholic church included – have the right to do the same, and no one should feel offended. Any other policy toward the gentiles would deny gentiles access to the one God whom Israel knows in the Torah. And the Catholic prayer expresses the same generous spirit that characterizes Judaism at worship. God’s kingdom opens its gates to all humanity and when at worship the Israelites ask for the speedy advent of God’s kingdom, they express the same liberality of spirit that characterizes the Pope’s text for the prayer for the Jews – better ‘holy Israel’—on Good Friday.

Let me explain. I derive evidence of the theology of Judaism toward the gentiles from the standard liturgy of the synagogue, repeated three times a day. I draw the text from The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire (London 1953), which sets forth an English translation of a prayer for the conversion of the gentiles that concludes public worship three times a day every day through the year. The text is uniform in the worship of Judaism. In it Israel the holy people (not to be confused with the State of Israel) thanks God for not making the holy people like the nations. [This is the famous shelo asani goi prayer.  I wrote about this prayer here.  Neusner’s analysis here has shifted my understanding.] In worship holy Israel asks that the world be perfected when all mankind calls upon God’s name and knows that to God every knee must bow.

The text of the prayer “It is our duty to praise the Lord of all things,” thanks God for making Israel different from the nations of the world. Israel has its own ‘portion’ and it is to differ from the nations. God is asked to remove ‘the abominations from the earth’ when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty. This prayer for the conversion of ‘all the wicked of the earth,’ who are ‘all the inhabitants of the world’ is recited in normative Judaism not once a year but every day. It finds its match in the passage in the Eighteen Benedictions that asks God to cut off the dominion of arrogance. We may say that normative Judaism asks God to enlighten the nations and bring them into his kingdom. As if to underscore this aspiration, the prayer ‘It is our duty’ is followed by the Kaddish: ‘May he establish his kingdom during your life and during your days and during the life of all the house of israel, even speedily and at a near time.’ I do not see how in spirit or in intent these prayers differ from the one under discussion. [Exactly.]

These passages from the standard, daily liturgy of normative Judaism leave no doubt that when holy Israel assembles for worship it asks God to illuminate the gentiles’ hearts. The eschatological vision finds nourishment in the Prophets and their vision of a single united humanity, and in a liberal spirit encompasses all humanity. The condemnation of idolatry does not afford much comfort to Christianity or Islam, which are passed by in silence. The prayers beseech God to hasten the coming of his kingdom. The prayers form the counterpart to the one that asks for the salvation of all Israel ‘in the fullness of time, when all mankind enters the Church.’ The proselytizing prayers of Judaism and Christianity share an eschatological focus and mean to keep the door to salvation open for all peoples. No more than Christianity and Islam take umbrage at the Israelite prayer should holy Israel object to the Catholic one.

Both ‘It is our duty’ and ‘Let us also pray for the Jews’ realize the logic of monotheism and its eschatological hope. [This is remarkable.]

Jacob Neusner

Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism
Senior Fellow, Institute of Advanced Theology
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504

 

WDTPRS applauds Prof. Neusner. 

I got the following question via e-mail:

Dear Father,

Laetare Sunday is almost upon us and the servers at my church have been earnestly debating a question you’re better placed to answer than most. Is it the case, as people used to say in the 1960s, that rose vestments can only be worn on two days of the year, next Sunday and Gaudete Sunday? Shouldn’t they also be worn on the Saturdays previous for vigil masses in both forms of the rite and—in spite of the fact that Saturday vigils as a substitute for Sunday’s obligation were a novelty of the 60s—surely there must be licit EF vigils nowadays in places like the Brompton Oratory ? Secondly, what about using rose during ferial masses during either week ? I’m sure younger priests would  be grateful for guidance.

First, yes, it is still the case that rose (rosacea) vestments can be used only two days of the year.  Therefore, it is important to consider what is "day" is.

A liturgical day begins in the evening.  So, for example, in the Novus Ordo when using the 2002 Missale Romanum on Saturday or the Vigil of a day of obligation, you use whatever Mass it for that Saturday until late afternoon, when you would start using the Sunday Mass texts (or proper Vigil Mass texts, as in the case of the day before Ascension Thursday.

So, for Laetare and Gaudete in the Novus Ordo, you can use rose vestments when celebrating the anticipated Sunday Mass on Saturday evening.

I would also add that we interpret laws in a way that favors our needs.  So, the 1983 Code helps us understand that our Sunday can extend beyond the mere liturgical day, all the way into the evening.  So, if you had a Sunday Mass a, say, 8 pm, it is still Sunday, even though we are past Second Vespers and one might be able to called it, liturgically speaking, already Monday.  Again, laws favor our needs.

As far as the Extraordinary Form is concerned, I don’t know about places using the older Missale Romanum on a Saturday evening as an anticipated Mass for the Sunday, that is, celebrating the Sunday Mass on Saturday evening.  Maybe there are such places, but I doubt it.  Perhaps someone will have heard of one and will post a comment.  In any event, if someone were saying the Laetare Sunday TLM on a Saturday evening, they would I suppose use rosacea if available.  Why not?  It is liturgically already Laetare Sunday.

However, if a correct TLM for the Saturday is celebrated on a Saturday evening, at the time a Novus Ordo anticipated Sunday Mass would be offered, one fulfills ones Sunday obligation, even though the Mass used was the Saturday Mass and not the Sunday Mass.  The 1983 Code of Canon Law states that we fulfill our obligation by participating at Mass in a Catholic Rite on the Sunday, or day of obligation, or on the vigil of the Sunday or day of obligation.  The texts don’t have to be of the Sunday, but it does have to be Mass in a Catholic Rite.

Occasionally I post about the insights of Fr. George Welzbacher, a priest of the Archdicoese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who writes a Pastor’s Page, for his parish of St. John on the east side of St. Paul.  Usually pastor’s pages aren’t worth much time, but Fr. Welzbacher’s always are.

This week he has posted about the recently change to the Good Friday prayer for Jews in the older Missale Romanum. 

Emphases are mine.

 

Pastor’s Page
By Fr. George Welzbacher
  
February 24, 2008

  By now you have probably read reports of Pope Benedict’s revision (issued February 5th) of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews that has long been part of the liturgy for Good Friday in the Tridentine rite. The revision does not relate to the Good Friday prayers recited or chanted in the post-Vatican II liturgy, the Novus Ordo, the order of worship which the overwhelming majority of Catholics follow today, either in the vernacular or, as in the Solemn High Mass offered each Sunday at the Church of St. Agnes, in Latin. The prayer revised by Pope Benedict is one in a long set of prayers offered on Good Friday for various groups, and like its companion prayers it is cast in the form of a couplet, with an initial exhortation to the congregants followed by a prayer addressed to God. On Good Friday this year, March 21st, the new wording will replace the older text for all those worshipping  in accordance with the Tridentine rite.

   In the past the congregants in the Tridentine rite were exhorted to pray that God would "remove from the hearts of the Jews the veil" [cf. 11 Corinthians 3:12-16] that is the source of a temporary "blindness" [Romans 11: 25-26] that hinders the Jews from seeing that Christ is the Savior of all mankind, Gentile and Jew alike. In a more diplomatic rewording of the foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, namely that all who are saved are saved through Christ and through Him alone, the introductory exhortation now reads (in my own translation): "Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Christ Jesus as the Savior of all mankind."  And the prayer with which the couplet concludes will now read: "Almighty and Eternal God, You who wish all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth [cf. I Timothy 2:4], grant in Your loving kindness that, as the Gentiles in their plenitude enter Your Church, all oflsrael may be saved.

   The official Latin text-in the Tridentine Rite vernacular languages have no place-reads as follows:

   Oremus et pro ludaeis: ut Deus et Dominus noster illuminet corda eorum, ut agnoscant lesum Christum salvatorem omnium hominum.
   Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui vis ut omnes homines saivi fiant et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius, ut plenitudine gentium in Ecciesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

   This new wording has been severely criticized both by Jewish religious leaders and by a narrow faction of arch-conservatives among the significant number of Catholics  preferring to follow the Tridentine rite. The aforesaid Catholic faction takes umbrage, it would seem, at the issuing of revisions of any kind. At the other end of the spectrum many leaders of the Jewish faith have voiced objection to the revision on the grounds that it does not go far enough. Quoted in the New York Times for February 6th, Rabbi David Rosen, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, described the revised text as "disappointing". This is his comment: "Pope Benedict really does care about positive Catholic-Jewish relations – that I know for a fact. It is therefore particularly disappointing that this text doesn’t seem to show any sensitivity as to how this new text will be read within Jewish circles." Rabbi Rosen’s negative evaluation was ratcheted up more than a notch or two in the formal resolution passed on February 12th by Conservative Judaism’s International Rabbinical Assembly.  The Rabbinical Assembly declared itself "dismayed and deeply disturbed that Pope Benedict XVI" in his revision of the Good Friday prayer is "retaining the rubric [the prayer’s formal title in the Missal] ‘For the Conversion of the Jews’. Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Assembly, was quoted in the Times (for February the ninth) to the effect that while "relationships with the Catholic Church are really quite good", the new text, in his opinion, "really turns back the clock a bit and reverts to some sense that the church is pulling back from the positions it took in Vatican II."

   The Jewish leaders’ objections stem of course from the fact that a majority of Jews reject Christ’s assertion that He is at once the Messiah, the Son of David, and the eternally begotten Son of God become Man, the Divine Word made Flesh, a Divine Person distinct from the Father but a Person Who from all eternity has received from the Father the entire Divine Nature and is therefore equal to the Father in all things: "Before ever Abraham was, I AM "(John 8:58) (cf. Exodus 3: 14) and "Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise" (John 5:19). Christ Himself insisted that in order to believe in His divinity His disciples would need a divinely bestowed gift of faith, a supernatural gift that man cannot generate by his own native powers: "No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draw him" (John 6:44). But Christ assured His disciples that the Father would grant this gift of faith to all who listened to His Son’s words and who earnestly sought to follow where those words led: "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened unto you" (Matthew 7:7). Accordingly, those who have received the gift of faith and who are thus able to confess Christ to be God’s only-begotten Son will have no quarrel with Christ’s assertion that "No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:16). If there can be no salvation apart from God, and if Christ is God, as indeed He is, then it follows that there can be no salvation apart from Christ. Thus words that would be blasphemous if uttered by a mere man-the ultimate charge leveled against Christ by the leaders of the Jews was blasphemy (John 19:7)-become, on the lips of the Man Who is God, the expression of inescapable reality: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:16).

    It should be emphasized that Christ’s declaration that "No one comes to the Father except through me" does not mean that only those who formally profess themselves to be Christian have access to salvation. As Pope Pius XII explained in Mystici Corporis, his encyclical letter on the nature of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, and as the Second Vatican Council reaffirmed in its magisterial document Lumen Gentium, everyone who tries to do God’s will in the light of what he sincerely believes that will to be possesses already by that very fact, connection with Christ, an imperfect connection, fragile and insecure, but a connection nevertheless, since the very core of God’s will is acceptance of and obedience to His only, begotten Son: "This is the work of my Father, that you believe in Him who He has sent." (John 6:29) But such an imperfect connection with Christ-what Pope Pius XII called "an implicit baptism of desire"-fragile and insecure as it is, ideally should be reinforced and brought to perfection by a formal and complete membership in Christ’s Church, with full participation in the life of grace. For in that Church alone is to be found the fullness of truth that Christ has revealed, a fullness that is guarded by the Holy Spirit against error and loss.  The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, in accordance with Christ’s promise dwells within Christ’s Church to guide and guard the Church’s defense of that truth forever (John: chapters 14, 15 and 16 passim), And only in the Church of Christ is to be found the full range of resources for healing and strengthening the human soul, the full panoply of the seven sacraments that combine to provide an inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness and grace. Clarity of purpose and certitude with respect to all that one must do if one is to achieve that purpose, together with easy access to the grace, the power, so to act—these are the gifts from God that are available in their fullness only in Christ’s Church, His Mystical Body, the instruent through which God offers us the fullest measure of unity with Christ that is attainable on our pilgrim way.

    That is why the Church cannot renounce its prayer for the conversion of the Jews, the people of the Ancient Covenant. To do so, to give up that prayer, would be a sin, a violation of charity. To approve the Jews’ exclusion from Christ’s mission of salvation would be to deny the justice of God. It would be to acquiesce in the devout Jew’s being deprived of the fullness of  truth and grace, and of a greater security in the pursuit of salvation, that full unity with Christ through full membership in His Church affords. Pope Benedict is thus in essence reaffirming the words that St. Peter spoke before the Sandhedrin, when the apostles were forbidden to preach in Jesus’ name: "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved" ( Acts 4: 12). It is precisely a genuine love for the Jews, a zealous desire that they should possess in Christ the fulfillment of the ancient promises, that urges us insistently to continue to pray that the day will come, as St. Paul assures us it will (Romans: Chapter 11), when the people of the Ancient Covenant will no longer be deprived of those overflowing riches of the spirit to which they have the most ancient claim.