Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 468

I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:
for Jew first, and then Greek. For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith;
as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith will live.”

Recently a former drug addict and drug pusher, now in recovery, asked me if I had read the Talmud yet. I don't quite recall when he assigned this reading to me but I didn't take it too seriously; lots of people tell me I should read something they find fascinating. 

His particular interest is a couple of anti-Christian verses buried within its thirty-six volumes of esoteric literature. For reasons I cannot imagine this fellow needs to think that the Christian faith --which he does not practice -- justifies antisemitic rants on the Internet. Nor is he impressed when I remind him of unfortunate interpretations of Saint Paul's oeuvre and Saint John's Gospel. The Catholic Church has only recently begun to address the antisemitism found its art, literature, and teaching. 

Reflecting on these infrequent encounters with this very intelligent, sorely misled fellow, I should like to tell him, "If the Jewish people were to disappear, the Church and Christianity would disappear with them." 

God's covenant is forever; it is founded upon the prehistory of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the history of Moses and David, and the facticity of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary, the Apostles, and all the saints and martyrs. Erase that ancient, unfinished story and our faith vanishes. There is no salvation without Jesus; there is no meaning, purpose, or depth to human experience without God's fidelity to the Covenant. Human life becomes as many suspect it might be, an anomaly in the vast, empty universe. Some Buddhists describe our human existence as a bubble on the foam of being, insubstantial and brief. Our joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointment are the illusions of "a passing shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more."

Saint Paul was keenly aware of this even as he sometimes ranted against his own Jewish people. But anyone who would quote him or the Gospel of John in a quarrel with Jews or an antisemitic screed should recognize they are seriously violating boundaries. 

Anyone can tell me a crude joke about priests so long as they are priests, and anyone can tell me a crude joke about Catholics so long as they are Catholic. But Protestants, Jews, and atheists need not apply; the same joke in their mouths is an insult. 

Similarly, we cannot take a stand with Jesus in his quarrels with Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Were anyone to do so the Lord would certainly tell them to, "Butt out; this has nothing to do with you!"

We can, however, read these stories as Christian criticisms against fellow Christians. There were in Paul's time, as there are in ours, people who think they can enforce their version of God's law. They suffer the same condemnation as Simon the Magician. 

I am quite sure my young friend will not listen to my final advice: he should join the Catholic Church and forget his own ideas. He should learn and trust our tradition. No one's personal interpretation of the Bible, liturgy, or religion is reliable -- least of all my own -- if it is not deeply and daily informed by the Magisterium. The Internet is no safe place to seek the truth unless one turns to the most reliable Catholic sources. 

Misreading the Talmud is not acceptable. I fear for my young friend. The law will not be so kind to him as he falls again into the vortex of evil.