Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter

The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.

The split within the Jewish community that set Christians apart from our ancestral Jewish roots hardly seems like a cause for joy. And yet Saint Luke consistently describes the early church as joyous in their new found “way.”

Sometimes change is necessary. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another….”

But the realization that Jews and Christians might be separate religions until the end of time has been slow in coming. Nostra Aetate, the document of the Second Vatican Council, does not address that possibility. Rather, it urges all Christians “to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.”

Since no one can predict the future and few can deduce the inscrutable ways of God, faithful Christians must be content to be "filled with joy and the Holy Spirit" in our present encounters and conversations with Jewish people. We don't need a hidden agenda when we meet with people of other religions, whether they be Jews, Muslims, Hindus or football fans. 

We should be profoundly grateful for the gift of faith which the Jews first received in Abraham and Sarah, and which they passed to us through Jesus, Mary, the apostles and disciples.

Personally, as I grow ever more grateful for the gift of liturgical prayer, I remember that our Mass and Sacraments and Hours are all firmly rooted in our Jewish heritage. Jesus grew up with the sacramental signs of water, oil, bread, wine, incense and vestments, not to mention the Law, Prophets, Wisdom Literature and Psalms.

Kneeling before God I suppose we all feel at times like Claudius, Hamlet’s step-father:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

words without thoughts never to heaven go. 

But as we come together around the altar, we are joined by all the saints and angels and Mary the Mother of God with Jesus our high priest, who brings with him the prayers of all his people from Abraham to the present. That is the beauty and the power and the glory of liturgy.