Fr. Z's Blog

Later today, I will participate in the Good Friday service in the Extraordinary Form.  Thank you, Holy Father for Summorum Pontificum.

During the Good Friday service, there are many intercessory prayers.  One of them is for the Jews.  Over the decades, the Good Friday prayer for the Jews has stirred controversy in diverse quarters. Benedict XVI changed the text of the 1962 Missale Romanum permitted for use according to Summorum Pontificum.  He inserted a new prayer for Jews of his own composition.

Let us revisit the issue and the prayer.  Some time ago, I wrote about this issue here.

Observations.

1. Most people really don’t care one way or another about this prayer.
2. It is used once a year.
3. Missals were changed by Popes all along the way.
4. Our Church is not a fly in amber.
5. People should actually read the prayer and think about it before freaking out.

Let’s have a look at the prayer as it appears in the 1962 Missale Romanum and now in its revised form in the 1962 Missale. My translations:

In first prayer of the couplet, the older version prayed that the darkness, in the image of a veil, be taken from the hearts of the Jews, presumably to let in the light of Christ, light being a metaphor for the Truth, who also is Christ. In first prayer of the newer version, we pray that God may illuminate, that is shed light, which is a metaphor for the Truth (who is Christ) in the hearts of the Jews.

Okay… it is a little less poetic in the new version. I like the poetry of the previous version and mourn its loss. I found nothing, zero, offensive to Jews in that older version. After, we Christians pray in terms our our own darkness. Still… the first prayers of both the older version and the newer version say the same thing.

The second prayer of the couplet, in the older version begins with a statement that God does not reject the Jews from His mercy. An obvious point. However, the Latin could be read to say in English: “O God, who does not reject even the Jews from Your mercy”. In English this could be made to sound rather like the Jews must be pretty bad indeed and that it would be reasonable for a less merciful God to not be merciful. However, Latin, not English, is the language of Mass and this phrase need not have that negative connotation. It is better to render it “also the Jews” and not just “even the Jews”. In the next part of the prayer we take it on ourselves to pray on behalf of their “darkness”, that is, that they lack the Truth, the light of Christ. That’s fine: we Christians pray for ourselves in those very same terms. We refer to our own dark sins all the time, etc. Then we pray that they will be rescued from darkness, which is a metaphor for error and the possibility of the loss of salvation. No problems there. I think we are pretty much praying for ourselves in those terms to. However, the force of the statement comes as much through the beautiful turn of phrase, the poetry that has an impact on the ear.

The second part of the newer version of the prayer, starts from the larger picture, rather than the smaller group. The older prayer focuses entirely on the Jews. The newer version starts from the fact that all men, whomever they may be, were made to be saved and happy with God in heaven. They are saved through “recognition of the Truth”. Christ is that Truth.

The interesting point here is what is being said in “grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Your Church, all Israel may be saved”.

This is a reference to Romans 11:25-26:

For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness (caecitas) in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles (plentitudo gentium) should come in (intraret). And so all Israel should be saved (omnis Israhel salvus fieret), as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

Earlier in Romans St. Paul says that the Church is the fulfillment of the Israel. However, here Paul is saying that God is not therefore finished with the Jews. In chapter 11, Paul is exploring how the Gentiles must be very humble in regard to their salvation. However, Paul says that Israel has, in fact, a blindness problem (caecitatas)… and that this blindness of Israel, that is the part of the Israel that did not covert and come into the Church… until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. So, Paul focuses on the responsibility of the Gentiles, but he is also saying that God is not finished with the unconverted Jews.

So, in the second part of the second prayer in the new, revised couplet: there is a direct scriptural reference to the “blindness… caecitas” of the Jews. This is very common with our Catholic prayers: often they only mention a fragment of a phrase of Scripture, and we must pick up the context.

If the Jews who hear this newer prayer think they have scored a victory over the Church because the Pope was persuaded to change the text, they are very much deluded. The reference to the blindness of the Jews is still there: you just have to take the veil off your Christian Bible and look up the reference. Frankly, I think that if the Jews who were really grousing at the Holy See look at this prayer, they are not going to like what the find. They won’t be happy until the Pope stands at the center balcony of St. Peter’s and says that Jews are right and that Christ irrelevant to salvation.

If any Catholic traditionalists are angry that the Pope changed the prayer, they too should pick up their Bibles and take a look around, thinking first, about what the prayer really says.

The new prayer has retained the substance of the old prayers. As a matter of fact, Pope Benedict has provided a deeper point of reflection. Let us not forget that the earlier versions, going back to the 1570 editio princeps, are not doctrinally wrong. We are free to change our manner of expression. What Pope Benedict has done is shift the style, yes, but also add a layer for our prayer life, rather than take one away.