Praying for the Conversion of Jews...

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On the page Fasting on Holy Saturday Chatter163 talks about a prayer called the “perfidious”, which called for the conversion of Jews. Simply I don’t really see why this should have been dropped, because while I reject any strain of anti-semitism that lurked in the Church I don’t think there is anything wrong with praying that all people will come to Christ’s Church. Certainly the intention on behalf of the Jews said on EWTN last night didn’t talk about conversion…only growing in faith. It feels like we’re speaking in code.

Catholig
 
Catholig said:
On the page Fasting on Holy Saturday Chatter163 talks about a prayer called the “perfidious”, which called for the conversion of Jews. Simply I don’t really see why this should have been dropped, because while I reject any strain of anti-semitism that lurked in the Church I don’t think there is anything wrong with praying that all people will come to Christ’s Church. Certainly the intention on behalf of the Jews said on EWTN last night didn’t talk about conversion…only growing in faith. It feels like we’re speaking in code.

Catholig
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We should pray for the conversion of all peoples, especialy the Jews to whom we are connected by our faith in the one true God. There is nothing anti-semitic about that at all. In fact, that we would pray and fast for their conversion is a testament that we care for the souls of the Jewish people.
 
The prayer called them “The perfidious Jews”. In fact, in my view it was no prayer. It was a damnation and a curse to the shame of Christians.

Hard words, but unfortunately ‘perfidious’ according to my dictionary, perfidious has a far from complimentary meaning. It means, and I quote: ‘treacherous’, ‘faithless’, ‘not to be trusted’. In the light of history, it is a nefarious word to apply to any people.

Please consider how you would feel if those terms were applied to you. And remember then that Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the Apostles were Jews too. Moreover, do you not consider it unjust that a whole people should be blamed for the death of Our Lord? Only a tiny handful of Jews could ever have met Jesus or come into contact with him, and most of these were his intimates and his friends. So assuming such terms could be applied to anyone, it would only be to those who personally knew him. Only two from this group come to my mind. Judas, of course, and also Peter, the Denier. But Peter repented and was forgiven.

Of course the priesthood in Jerusalem may have had a vested interest in disposing of Jesus. Joseph Caiaphas’s cynical comment about one Man dying for the good of the people would support such an hypothesis. But Caiaphas was only one man too! And then, too, we must not forget that it was not the Jews who crucified Jesus, however much the priesthood may have seen it as a pragmatic imperative. It was the Romans who nailed Our Lord to the cross. Jesus’s message was hardly one that Rome could welcome. Irony of ironies, therefore, that the Church Jesus founded is now centred in Rome!

But for far too long the Christian Church maintained a very dubious and jaundiced view of the Jews. I do recommend that you do some reading on this. The Lord’s own people have suffered terribly at Christian hands for 2000 years. And it could be argued that it was attitudes shaped by the Christian mindset that eased the way for the Nazi Holocaust of innocent men, women and even tiny children - six millions, a number not easy to take in. Perfidious was undoubtedly a term that would sit well on Hitler’s and Eichmann’s lips.

It was not before time that good Pope John expunged that unrighteous slur from a Christian liturgy. The Jews are the people of the Lord. They still perform the Seder, which is the Pasover ceremony which was also the Last Supper, and which is the forerunner of the Christian Eucharist. Jews therefore are our brothers and sisters. They are no more and no less perfidious than any Christian.

Certainly we should pray for Jews to come to the knowledge of Jesus, but always in charity.
 
Catholig said:
On the page Fasting on Holy Saturday Chatter163 talks about a prayer called the “perfidious”, which called for the conversion of Jews. Simply I don’t really see why this should have been dropped, because while I reject any strain of anti-semitism that lurked in the Church I don’t think there is anything wrong with praying that all people will come to Christ’s Church. Certainly the intention on behalf of the Jews said on EWTN last night didn’t talk about conversion…only growing in faith. It feels like we’re speaking in code.

Catholig
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Maybe it has to do with the spirit of ecumenism, where all faiths are more or less considered equal, and it’s considered offensive to other faiths for us to pray for their conversion to Catholicism.
 
Herod said:
The prayer called them “The perfidious Jews”. In fact, in my view it was no prayer. It was a damnation and a curse to the shame of Christians.

Hard words, but unfortunately ‘perfidious’ according to my dictionary, perfidious has a far from complimentary meaning. It means, and I quote: ‘treacherous’, ‘faithless’, ‘not to be trusted’. In the light of history, it is a nefarious word to apply to any people.

Please consider how you would feel if those terms were applied to you. And remember then that Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the Apostles were Jews too. Moreover, do you not consider it unjust that a whole people should be blamed for the death of Our Lord? Only a tiny handful of Jews could ever have met Jesus or come into contact with him, and most of these were his intimates and his friends. So assuming such terms could be applied to anyone, it would only be to those who personally knew him. Only two from this group come to my mind. Judas, of course, and also Peter, the Denier. But Peter repented and was forgiven.

Of course the priesthood in Jerusalem may have had a vested interest in disposing of Jesus. Joseph Caiaphas’s cynical comment about one Man dying for the good of the people would support such an hypothesis. But Caiaphas was only one man too! And then, too, we must not forget that it was not the Jews who crucified Jesus, however much the priesthood may have seen it as a pragmatic imperative. It was the Romans who nailed Our Lord to the cross. Jesus’s message was hardly one that Rome could welcome. Irony of ironies, therefore, that the Church Jesus founded is now centred in Rome!

But for far too long the Christian Church maintained a very dubious and jaundiced view of the Jews. I do recommend that you do some reading on this. The Lord’s own people have suffered terribly at Christian hands for 2000 years. And it could be argued that it was attitudes shaped by the Christian mindset that eased the way for the Nazi Holocaust of innocent men, women and even tiny children - six millions, a number not easy to take in. Perfidious was undoubtedly a term that would sit well on Hitler’s and Eichmann’s lips.

It was not before time that good Pope John expunged that unrighteous slur from a Christian liturgy. The Jews are the people of the Lord. They still perform the Seder, which is the Pasover ceremony which was also the Last Supper, and which is the forerunner of the Christian Eucharist. Jews therefore are our brothers and sisters. They are no more and no less perfidious than any Christian.

Certainly we should pray for Jews to come to the knowledge of Jesus, but always in charity.
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I am reminded of Matthew 27:21-25 (DR):

And the governor answering, said to them: Whether will you of the two to be released unto you? But they said, Barabbas. Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

All four of the Gospels make the point that though the Romans carried out the Crucifixion of Christ, it was the Jewish people (lead by the priests) who demanded His death and even accepted full responsibility for it.
 
Caesar said:
I am reminded of Matthew 27:21-25 (DR):

And the governor answering, said to them: Whether will you of the two to be released unto you? But they said, Barabbas. Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

All four of the Gospels make the point that though the Romans carried out the Crucifixion of Christ, it was the Jewish people (lead by the priests) who demanded His death and even accepted full responsibility for it.
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Caesar, you surely do not truly believe that the whole of the Jewish people were represented by the mob in the courtyard of the Antonia fortress? For a start, to enter there would have made Jews unclean and therefore unfit to celebrate to upcoming festival. Then the word used in Latin is, I think, ‘Turba’. Turba means a mob. Most likely a mob led by creatures of the High Priest.

But even allowing that Jews were prepared to be ritually polluted by entering the Lithostroton, the numbers there in no way those there could have represented the totality of the Jewish race. There were probably more Jews living in Alexandria at that time than in the whole of Judea. It was, as I said in another posting, relatively few who knew Jesus intimately. The calls for his execution were undoubtedly orchestrated by the priests, who would have considered His death expedient; and the Romans would have found it very convenient too.

There was also a lot of politics being played out at Jesus’ ‘trial’. Pilate is accused of being no friend of Caesar. This was a potentially lethal charge. Tiberius Caesar would not tolerate any hint of rebellion in any of his governors. So Pilate was between a rock and a hard place. Jesus stood no chance of being reprieved once the charge was made. And it was made by the priests - not by the Jewish people.

As to the blood curse, any group can make such a terrible oath, but unless I know and assent to it, no blame can attach to me… I think the same right has to be allowed to the Jews.
 
Herod said:
The prayer called them “The perfidious Jews”. In fact, in my view it was no prayer. It was a damnation and a curse to the shame of Christians.

Hard words, but unfortunately ‘perfidious’ according to my dictionary, perfidious has a far from complimentary meaning. It means, and I quote: ‘treacherous’, ‘faithless’, ‘not to be trusted’. In the light of history, it is a nefarious word to apply to any people.

Please consider how you would feel if those terms were applied to you. And remember then that Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the Apostles were Jews too. Moreover, do you not consider it unjust that a whole people should be blamed for the death of Our Lord? Only a tiny handful of Jews could ever have met Jesus or come into contact with him, and most of these were his intimates and his friends. So assuming such terms could be applied to anyone, it would only be to those who personally knew him. Only two from this group come to my mind. Judas, of course, and also Peter, the Denier. But Peter repented and was forgiven.

Of course the priesthood in Jerusalem may have had a vested interest in disposing of Jesus. Joseph Caiaphas’s cynical comment about one Man dying for the good of the people would support such an hypothesis. But Caiaphas was only one man too! And then, too, we must not forget that it was not the Jews who crucified Jesus, however much the priesthood may have seen it as a pragmatic imperative. It was the Romans who nailed Our Lord to the cross. Jesus’s message was hardly one that Rome could welcome. Irony of ironies, therefore, that the Church Jesus founded is now centred in Rome!

But for far too long the Christian Church maintained a very dubious and jaundiced view of the Jews. I do recommend that you do some reading on this. The Lord’s own people have suffered terribly at Christian hands for 2000 years. And it could be argued that it was attitudes shaped by the Christian mindset that eased the way for the Nazi Holocaust of innocent men, women and even tiny children - six millions, a number not easy to take in. Perfidious was undoubtedly a term that would sit well on Hitler’s and Eichmann’s lips.

It was not before time that good Pope John expunged that unrighteous slur from a Christian liturgy. The Jews are the people of the Lord. They still perform the Seder, which is the Pasover ceremony which was also the Last Supper, and which is the forerunner of the Christian Eucharist. Jews therefore are our brothers and sisters. They are no more and no less perfidious than any Christian.

Certainly we should pray for Jews to come to the knowledge of Jesus, but always in charity.
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Herod, all I know of the prayer is its name, and as I said I personally don’t think that any form of anti-semitism is good for Our Lord while on the cross pleaded on their behalf (Lk 23:24). My only point was that it seems that we no longer pray for their conversion - instead only praying that they “grow in faith”.

Catholig
 
According to wikipedia the original version of the prayer is as follows:
Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that our God and Lord may remove the veil from their hearts; that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. (‘Amen’ is not responded, nor is said ‘Let us pray’, or ‘Let us kneel’, or ‘Arise’, but immediately is said) Almighty and Eternal God, Who dost not exclude from Thy mercy even the faithless Jews: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of Thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, through all endless ages. Amen.
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Overall, I don’t think that it is anit-semitic per se - it does say that they are faithless, but it states that god doesn’t exclude them from his mercy, and asks that they may know Christ.

Catholig
 
Caesar said:
I am reminded of Matthew 27:21-25 (DR):

And the governor answering, said to them: Whether will you of the two to be released unto you? But they said, Barabbas. Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

All four of the Gospels make the point that though the Romans carried out the Crucifixion of Christ, it was the Jewish people (lead by the priests) who demanded His death and even accepted full responsibility for it.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think its ever been an official teaching of the Church (under either papal or ordinary infallibility) that the entire Jewish race carries the guilt of Christ’s crucifixion from generation to generation? In fact, I thought John Paul II condemned this view, though I don’t remember where I read or heard that.
 
Caesar said:
And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

All four of the Gospels make the point that though the Romans carried out the Crucifixion of Christ, it was the Jewish people (lead by the priests) who demanded His death and even accepted full responsibility for it.
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All the world should be prayed for, that all might be converted and saved, and esp., as you say the Jewish people, since the New Covenant fufills the old one.

As for the above, the Church teaches that the charge of deicide is not to be leveled at the Jewish people as a whole. Even in the passage you cite, Caesar, when it says that the “whole people” answered, it would clearly only apply to the mob. As for “His Blood be upon us and upon our children,” they might have called blood guilt down upon themselves, but only God could juridicially determine that guilt Himself and the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity prayed in the midst of His Agony on the Cross that the Father would forgive those who did this to Him. God the Son calling out to God the Father? What do you reckon the result of that would be?

And let us not forget, Christ’s Death was predetermined. He knew He had to die, to be sacrificed as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the World, as satisfaction and propitiation for our sins to the Honor, Justice, and Majesty of God. We’re ALL responsible for the death of the Lord, it was our sins that nailed Him to the Cross. In a few short hours, the priests are going to stand in the light of the Paschal Candle and chant,“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
 
JKirkLVNV said:
Most assuredly, it is. There is only one Jew depicted here. The other person is a GENTILE, of the nation that is at least juridicially responsible for the death of the Lord Christ.
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Oh, I was only trying to portray the passion of Jesus, nothing else.
 
paramedicgirl said:
Oh, I was only trying to portray the passion of Jesus, nothing else.
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I see. I sat up and watched this late last night. I try to watch it during Holy Week. I don’t see how people could ever have complained that it was anti-semitic, the Romans (standing here for the whole Gentile world) were base brutes. It was, however, a good exercise for my soul.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
I see. I sat up and watched this late last night. I try to watch it during Holy Week. I don’t see how people could ever have complained that it was anti-semitic, the Romans (standing here for the whole Gentile world) were base brutes. It was, however, a good exercise for my soul.
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I planned on watching it yesterday, and Father Corapi’s Easter Triduum on Thursday, but due to an extremely heavy EMS couple of days, I didn’t get to do either. And I also missed Holy Thursday Mass, and Good Friday, too. Getting ready to go to the Easter Vigil now. Pray my pager doesn’t go off!
 
paramedicgirl said:
I planned on watching it yesterday, and Father Corapi’s Easter Triduum on Thursday, but due to an extremely heavy EMS couple of days, I didn’t get to do either. And I also missed Holy Thursday Mass, and Good Friday, too. Getting ready to go to the Easter Vigil now. Pray my pager doesn’t go off!
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I will remember your intentions at Mass tonight, PMG.
 
Why must it be assumed that there was evil intent on the part of the Church? Why can’t we acknowledge that there are indeed perfidious Jews and non-perfidious Jews and the prayer was directed to the former, not the entire Jewish people.

There are also perfidious and non-perfidious Catholics. The perfidious need our prayers much more than the non-perfidious. It’s only charitable.

And one other thing. What exactly is the Latin word that has been translated here as perfidious?
 
Leave it to good old Wikipedia to provide some clarity:

*The congregants do not kneel during the prayer for the conversion of the Jews, because the Church did not wish to imitate the Jews who mocked Christ before his Crucifixion by kneeling before him and reviling him. During the major revision of the Holy Week Liturgy in 1955 Pope Pius XII instituted kneeling in the same place as the other petitions. More recently, this prayer has been changed in the way it refers to the Jews, and the Catholic church has now revised this petition. In 1960, Pope John XXIII removed the word “faithless” (Latin “perfidis”) from the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. This word had caused much trouble in recent times because of misconceptions arising from false translations by anti-Catholics of the Latin “perfidis” as “perfidious”, which has a much more negative undertone in English than its cognate in Latin. This lead some anti-Catholics to claim the prayer accused the Jews of treachery, which was a complete misunderstanding of the prayer since it was not a litany of accusation, but a petition for conversion. In handmissals used by the laity to follow the Latin Mass, the word was always correctly translated as “faithless” or “unbelieving”. In 1967, the prayer was revised as this:

Let us also pray that our God and Lord will look kindly on the Jews, so that they too may acknowledge the Redeemer of all, Jesus Christ our Lord. . . . Almighty and eternal God, you made the promises to Abraham and his descendants. In your goodness hear the prayers of your Church so that the people whom from of old you made your own may come to the fullness of redemption. *
 
KMXV said:
Why must it be assumed that there was evil intent on the part of the Church? Why can’t we acknowledge that there are indeed perfidious Jews and non-perfidious Jews and the prayer was directed to the former, not the entire Jewish people.

There are also perfidious and non-perfidious Catholics. The perfidious need our prayers much more than the non-perfidious. It’s only charitable.

And one other thing. What exactly is the Latin word that has been translated here as perfidious?
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Why can’t we accept that it has changed and we no longer use the word?
 
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