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Posted by on Oct 5, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

October 5 is the feast day of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905 – 1938) whose brief life and spiritual journal inspired The Divine Mercy Movement in the Catholic Church. She was baptized Helen Kowalska and came from a small village Glogowiecz near Lodz, Poland. She was the third of ten children and had only 3 years of formal education. At 14 she began working in well to do house holds as a governess. (Given her limited education she was probably more of a domestic servant.) Helen Kowalska was known as a pleasant, cheerful, and talkative young woman. When she was almost 20 she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy in Cracow as a lay sister on August 1, 1925. She worked mainly in the kitchen and the garden. She pronounced her first vows on April 30, 1926 and became Sr. Mary Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

In the convent she was pleasant, cheerful, and obedient according to her fellow sisters. She was pleasantly unremarkable until the evening of February 22, 1931 when she had her first vision of Christ, as the King of Mercy. In the years that followed she received her call to be an apostle and secretary of Christ in promoting an awareness of the Divine Mercy and living a life a life of mercy. It was not smooth sailing by any means. She was honest with her spiritual directors and confessors but no one could reassure her that the visions were really legitimate. Her fellow sisters generally viewed her experience with a high degree of skepticism. St. Faustina kept her pleasant disposition and continued to carry out all of her tasks with industry. Nevertheless, she became a social outcast and her life became miserable. Understandably, she identified with Christ in His Passion.

Relief came in 1933 after St. Faustina professed her perpetual vows. Her spiritual advisors helped her to have confidence in the visions and her relationship with Christ. When the first painting of her vision was completed she was disappointed that it conveyed very little of the great beauty of her vision. The painting was first publicly displayed in 1935 in Vilnius which was in Poland at the time and is now the capital of Lithuania. The devotion really took off with outbreak of World War II in 1939 a year after St. Faustina’s death and grew steadily for the next 20 years. The Holy See banned the devotion in 1959 due to wording in translations of devotional material. Carol Wojtyla the Archbishop of Cracow worked unceasingly for 20 years to get the ban lifted. He succeeded six months before he was elected Pope John Paul II.

In a way it not surprising that Pope John Paul II the first Polish pope, would have been inspired by her as young man. In fact John Paul II canonized (declared her a saint) St. Faustina in 2000 as the first saint of the new millenium and as a model for Christians in the third millenium. The pope also designated the second Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday for the entire church. The day the Pope made these pronouncements, he said that it was the happiest day of his life. John Paul II would later die on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005.

What is surprising is that such a devotion, which focuses on helping others in physical and spiritual need, would become so strong in Poland at a time when it was about to be ripped asunder by Hitler and Stalin and would reappear in a different shape and location behind the Iron Curtain as a Communist country.

Unlike many devotional movements in the Catholic Church which focus on the individual’s relationship with Christ, the Divine Mercy movement emphasizes a ministry of service to others and society. Christians are called to be the compassion of God here and now. The movement focuses on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy as outlined in Matthew 25: 35-46. ( For a list of the Works of Mercy, please scroll down to the bottom of this link in American Catholic.)

Like many Catholic devotional movements, there is an emphasis on a particular image of Christ, there is a chaplet of prayers, and a novena. Divine Mercy Sunday is now becoming a day of special devotional observance in churches which enshrine the image. The challenge for Catholic culture will be to meet the discomfort and privation of the following of Christ as promoted and lived by St. Faustina Kowalska and Pope John Paul II. If the Divine Mercy becomes yet another icon of personal comfort we will have found yet another way to say no to Christ politely.

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Posted by on Oct 4, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Saint of the Day – St. Francis of Assisi

October 4 is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). I once heard a priest ( a non-Franciscan) say that St. Francis was one of the great religious figures of all time. Francis left a life of privilege and comfort to adopt a radical Christian lifestyle of poverty and service to the poor. Francis became the reluctant head of a major religious movement of men and women. Today he is revered by Christians and non-Christians around the world as a model of peace, humility, and compassion.

Francis was one of seven children and he was baptized Giovanni di Bernadone. His parents were Pietro di Bernardone and Pica Bourlemont. His father called him Francesco – an apparent reference to his mother’s French heritage. Francis’ father was a successful cloth merchant and Francis had the benefit of a good education. He ran with a group of young well-to-do friends who spent their time drinking, partying, and chasing women. From time to time his charity got the better of him, and his friends – as well as his father – mocked him for his foolishness in giving to the needy.

The story of his conversion is a gradual one involving a year in Perugia as a prisoner of war, illness, and a constant sense of calling. Franco Zefirelli’s film biography of St. Francis, “Brother Son, Sister Moon” (1973), presents a young idealistic, impractical man. To many, Zefirelli’s St. Francis was a hippie. As “mature” (read “jaded”) sophisticates, it is easy to be condescending to St. Francis as portrayed by his biographers and the facts of his actual life. However, if we dismiss St. Francis as a gentle fool, we do so to his model – Christ.

The early impact of St. Francis on the Church was to renew personal devotion to Christ as the Incarnate Word dwelling with us. He invented the “creche,” or nativity scene, as an opportunity and aid to contemplation of the human birth of God in poverty to the powerless of the world. Service to the outcast – lepers, the homeless, the mentally ill, the destitute – became service to Christ in our midst. The presence of God in His creation and all life forms, is a hallmark of his spirituality. St. Francis’ tangible sense of God would continue to ripple down the centuries, not only through members of the Franciscan family – St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus – but also St. Dominic, St, Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius Loyola, and St. Vincent de Paul. The work of Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr is a good example of the spirituality of St. Francis today. The life and example of St. Francis permeates western Christianity – both Catholic and Protestant – in such a way that it is difficult to conceive of Christianity without him.

Today, St. Francis is important to people around the world facing issues of hunger, nuclear war, and environmental collapse. Every year in September in Assisi, the United Nations holds a peace conference and Pope John Paul II led inter-faith peace services on more than one occasion. St. Francis continues to challenge those who are religious and mystical to encounter the living God in the messiness of everyday life and problems which seem completely beyond our control.

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Posted by on Oct 2, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Guardian Angels –

October 2 is the feast of the Guardian Angels. Spirit messengers and agents of the Divine are found in many world religions that predate Christianity. Angels are also a big part of New Age spirituality.

Spirithome.com’s article on Why Angels? does a good job of reviewing traditional Christian views of angels and their place in the lives of Christians. (The site is an excellent information and inspiration resource. Be sure to check it out.)

If you want to review the traditional Catholic teaching on angels, take a look at Catholic Online. It can be a little technical but is also an excellent example of a highly rational post-Enlightenment type of theology.

Angels-Online is a site devoted to contemporary stories about people’s experiences of Angels. Some stories are better than others. However, they attest to the current fascination with Angels as a sign of God’s providence or as benevolent spirits in a world of “spirituality” without religion.

The persistence of Angels in people who adhere to religion or who embrace its early earth related forms is a sign of something deeper. People perceive activity in a realm beyond immediate physical reality. If we take a closer look at non-industrialized “primitive” people, as studied by anthropologists, we see that most everything in everyday life is explained in terms of spirits. This notion that the spiritual realm is the true realm is widespread throughout world religions, including Christianity.

The belief in Guardian Angels is a belief in God’s individual care and concern for all of us. For all of us post-moderns stuck in the here and now, Angels offer us a reminder. Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

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Posted by on Oct 2, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

St. Jerome – Humanist, Scholar, and Saint

St. Jerome (331-420) was a man steeped in classical learning who produced the first Latin translation of the Bible. His feast day is September 30. Leslie J. Hoppe, OFM, in his article on St. Jerome, “The Perils of a Bible Translator,” shows that this vocation is not for the faint of heart.

In the first place, understanding and translating the scriptures requires a secular knowledge of languages, history, and culture that can challenge faith. St. Jerome had a nightmare in which he came before Christ on Judgment Day and was found not to be a Christian but a Ciceronian. (This was a nightmare that became a reality for centuries of Christian students who had to master Classical Ciceronian Latin.)

Sometimes the translator or the Christian scholar finds things that might be better left alone. For example, what if some of the books appear to not be part of the original collection?

Today we often get upset if a translator changes the phrasing of passages which we love. When St. Jerome came out with his translation in the everyday language of the people, enough of them got so upset that there were riots in Tripoli. St. Augustine and other major teachers were very critical.

It is all very modern if it weren’t so ancient.

Portraying St. Jerome with a lion appears to have come from a medieval legend in with the saint pulls the thorn out of the paw of a lion and lives to tell the tale. Even if it is not true, it presents a very good picture of what it means to be a scripture scholar and translator.

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Posted by on Sep 27, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Vincent de Paul

Saint of the Day – St. Vincent de Paul

 

St. Vincent de Paul (1576? 1580? – 1660) is justifiably remembered as a great model of charity. However, his charity addressed not only the immediate needs of people but also focused on longer term solutions.

Born to poor parents at Pouy, Gascony in France, St. Vincent de Paul’s life was an amazing adventure. Working his way through school he was ordained a priest. He spent two years as a slave in Tunisia after having been captured aboard ship by Turks. He managed to escape and made his way home via Italy and Rome. He preached to the rural poor, ministered to galley slaves, and rose to the Royal Court while becoming the hero of the poor of Paris.

St. Vincent de Paul organized groups of men and women, priests and nuns to expand his mission of preaching, feeding, housing, nursing, and teaching the most abject members of society. He had influence with some of history’s most powerful men – Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin who, as first ministers to the King, made France the dominant power in Europe. King Louis XIII asked for St. Vincent de Paul’s assistance on his deathbed. After the king’s death, he managed to prevent a violent crackdown on the people of Paris, who had protested the interim rule of Louis XIII’s widow, Ann of Austria, as Regent.

St. Vincent de Paul organized massive relief efforts for areas of France devastated by the 30 Years War. He raised incredible amounts of money from nobles and the merchant class by letters and publications. He built hospitals, old age homes, and orphanages that also had endowments to fund their continued service. Certainly, these achievements alone would have make him one of the greatest figures of the early Modern period.

However, St. Vincent de Paul’s lasting legacy is his sense of creating organizations and institutions to meet longer term needs. The organizations include the Daughters of Charity, founded by St. Louise de Marillac, The Congregations of the Mission (Vincentian Fathers and Brothers) and various lay groups, such as the Ladies of Charity, which now operate in 40 countries.

St. Vincent shaped the emergence of the Catholic Church in the Modern period by his establishment of training programs for priests and his efforts to stem the gloominess of Jansenism.

The Council of Trent (1545 -1563) mandated several major reforms. One of these was the establishment of special schools or seminaries for the training of priests. Previously, priests might have been educated in monasteries and universities or received very little formal education. Of the 20 seminaries established after the Council of Trent, only 10 had survived by the early 1600’s due to the wars of religion.

Theologically, St. Vincent made a lasting impact by his opposition to Jansenism. He used his influence to make sure that priests who subscribed to this heresy did not receive funded positions (benefices). St. Vincent de Paul was especially active in securing the censure of the Jansenist heresy. He got the support of 85 bishops to condemn the teaching, which obliterated free will and left people predestined to heaven or hell by a grim and capricious God. St. Vincent de Paul was instrumental in securing the censure of Jansenism by Pope Innocent X in 1655 and Pope Alexander VII in 1656.

Although much of his wonderful work was swept away by the French Revolution, the institutions he founded now operate in 40 countries. St. Vincent de Paul’s spirituality – the love of God for all – is the gift that keeps giving.

St. John’s University presents an excellent portrait of St. Vincent de Paul’s spiritual journey on its website.

In the interests of transparency, I must disclose my debt to St. Vincent de Paul as well, since I received my high school education from a mixed faculty of diocesan priests and Vincentian Fathers (the Congregation of the Mission) at Our Lady Queen of the Angels Seminary in San Fernando, CA. How do you say thank you to those who not only taught you to write but to think critically and live compassionately? All I can hope to do is to pay it forward.

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Posted by on Sep 26, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Neuropsychology – Beyond the Soul: The Secular Sense of Self

Picasso Self-Portrait

Picasso: Self-Portrait

WNYC’s Radio Lab pod cast, “Who Am I?” aptly summarizes current scientific understanding of the neurology of self-perception. Traditionally, the sense of the self, along with intellectual capabilities, are thought to be contained in the soul. Apparently, our perception of self awareness appears to come from the right hemisphere.

There is a compelling story about a 46 year old woman who suffered an aneurysm and recovered as a person with a completely different self who happens to share the same history and memories of her previous self. The emergence of this new person was startling to her only child, her daughter. From being very proper and aware of social conventions, her mother became much less of perfectionist, someone who loves to sing, and is much more interested in sex. Her mother does not worry about death, although she doesn’t have a memory of a near death experience.

A neuropsychologist, Dr. Paul Broks, author of Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology, said that we are all just a car crash away from being a completely different person. Our self is nothing but the story the brain tells itself.

Dr. V.S. Ramachandran says that what is unique about us is our ability to tell stories. He believes that introspective consciousness began some time between 200,000 and 500,000 years ago. For example, a monkey can make associations with a color such as red but it cannot imagine something called a purple striped canary. Only humans can take images from the real world and make abstractions. Humans can conjure imagination. This allows us to manipulate ideas to the extent that we can imagine ourselves. The idea of ourself is a story that we can change from day to day, according to this perspective.

What happens when we sleep? Our brain produces our dreams as well as producing ourselves. There is a fascinating story, told by Robert Louis Stevenson, of training little people in his head to tell him a story in a dream that he could later write down to meet his need to produce stories to make a living.

There is also a very interesting story about the loss of a father and the son’s grief reaction which blurred the boundaries of identity between the two.

With all of this neurology, what happens to the concept of a spiritual soul that is our fundamental principle of identity? What about all of the intellectual faculties that are supposed to inhere in the soul? If what we call the soul is the result of neurological activity, what survives when we die?

Clearly this is another contrast between scientific modes of explanation and religious and philosophical modes of explanation. However, it is fair to say that just as geology and paleontology changed our notion of the nature and meaning of creation, neuroscience is about to take us and our notions of philosophy and theology on a roller coaster.

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Posted by on Sep 25, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Saint of the Day: St. Elzear & Bl. Delphina – The Happy Couple

Today, an unconsummated marriage would probably not be considered advisable by the Church and mental health experts. St. Elzear and Blessed Delphina were a couple who were married and lived together chastely. They are saints because of their care of the poor and the suffering. This couple is also known for their conscientious exercise of their duties as members of the nobility. Interestingly, they were known and remembered as a happy couple.

Personally, I don’t think that I would have responded by taking a vow of chastity on my wedding night the way St. Elzear did when he found out the Delphina had already made one. We have a contemporary theology of marriage that stresses and endows love making and sex within marriage as sacramental.

Certainly the late Middle Ages (St. Elzear 1286 -1323, Bl. Delphina 1283- 1358) was not a “puritanical” time. In fact, Puritanism would not happen for another 200 years and would never take root in the Mediterranean.

St. Elzear was born at the family castle in Ansouis, Provence, in the south of France. At 23, he became lord of Ansouis and Count of Ariano in the Kingdom of Naples. The Count and Contessa became influential in the court of King Robert of Naples and Elzear was the tutor to the King’s son Charles. He was also the “justiciar” or head of law enforcement and justice for southern Abruzzi under King Robert. St. Elzear died on September 27, 1323 while on a diplomatic mission to Paris to arrange the marriage of Charles to Mary of Valois. Blessed Delphina would survive him for another 35 years and spend the time in continued acts of charity.

As nobles, producing children was a serious responsibility. Even when having children was precluded due to medical reasons, noblemen usually had some illegitimate sons at hand. William the Conqueror was one such son. Since the marriage of the Count and Contessa of Ariano (St. Elzear and Blessed Delphina) was so atypical by the standards of their day and ours, how do we relate to it?

Perhaps it was a marriage of convenience, in the sense that due to their social station they were obliged to marry but would have really preferred monastic vocations. Since their state in life was determined when they were young children of a noble family, they simply found a way around it.

Young children at the ages of 5 -7 were sent as oblates to monasteries and convents. Hildegard of Bingen and St. Thomas Aquinas are two examples. We also know, of course, that many people who found themselves in “enforced” monastic vocations would do their best to bend or break the rules.

Then as now, marriages – especially those among the rich and powerful -were not happy affairs. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) and her Church sanctioned marriages to King Louis VII of France and King Henry II of England demonstrates the far from Romantic character of such marriages. In fact, Eleanor of Aquitaine was a major promoter of the troubadour movement. The origins of what we today experience as romantic love originally began as songs of chaste love for the unattainable woman. As we know, the reality of courtly love was far from chaste, but it seemed to provide some fluidity in a tight social structure. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t cause feelings of betrayal and rejection resulting in duels, beatings, and death. The case of King Henry VIII in the early modern period (1491 -1547) provides a window onto the complexity of marriage in Europe in previous centuries.

The Count and Contessa feeding the poor, living as lay Franciscans, and in the case of St. Elzear healing lepers were definitely unusual for the time. What was probably most striking about them is that they were known as a happy couple. Their marriage – even if its lack of consummation might not adhere to the Church’s definition of one – was a partnership for a radical living of the Gospel.

In our own culture and time, can we say as much about our marriages and the joy, happiness and moral guidance they bring to others?

There are two slightly different accounts of these saints, with some inconsistencies. Please see Saint of the Day at AmericanCatholic.org and Catholic Online.

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Posted by on Sep 24, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Spiritual Machines?

Ray Kurzweil’s 2005 The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is an update of his 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines.

Kurzweil has excellent credentials in information technology. He invented the first flat bed scanner, initiated speech and voice recognition technologies, pioneered music synthesizers. Kurzweil was the first to develop technology that could read text and speak it out loud.

Based on this record of achievement and innovation on matters relating to artificial intelligence, Kurzweil estimates that we are approaching a point at which machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence. The point of intelligence surpassing human biology is called the singularity. The point from which everything begins.

Contemporary physics, as elaborated by Stephen Hawking in his updated A Briefer History of Time, refers to the emergence of the universe from an initial singularity.

Kurzweil uses the singularity concept to describe a tipping at which machines surpass human intelligence. It also implies that when the intelligence of machines surpasses (or even approaches) human intelligence, a sense of self – an experience of soul – will occur in these mechanical systems.

Basically, intelligence and the sense of self is reduced to a critical mass of neurons firing, whether they are carbon based neurons in humans or silicon based neurons in machines. The next assumption is that spirituality derives from this sense of self awareness.

Physician and scientist, Antonio Damasio in his book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion Reason and the Human Brain (1994), presents the case that our perception and intelligence is linked – literally – with our nervous system’s extension outside the skull and throughout the body. According to Damasio, it is not possible have a functioning nervous system floating in a medium separate and apart from the human body.

Since our body influences and literally shapes our sense of self awareness and identity, what will happen to silicon based intelligence developing without an analagous body is not clear. Even carbon based “organic” computer systems floating in a liquid medium would not have the human sense of body.

The other issue is that the sheer volume of firing neurons does not necessarily create consciousness in humans. If we reduce consciousness, self identity, and soul to the direct or indirect product of physical functions, how can there be a spirit on which to have a spirituality? By definition, the spirit cannot be reduced to the physical.

If we reduce the soul to the product of physics and chemistry, isn’t our sense of spirit and spirituality merely a cognitive error of some type? If there is no objective or actual realm that transcends the physical, won’t machines in their cognitive excellence avoid this delusion?

Stay tuned for a post on Bernard Lonergan, S.J. author of Insight: A Study of Human Understanding.

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Posted by on Sep 21, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement 2007

Sunset September 21, to Sunset September 22, 2007 is the Jewish Day of Atonement.

This is the day set aside for asking for forgiveness of God and those against whom we have sinned. The “virtual” Talmud – an adaptation of the Jewish tradition of teaching and commentary has an excellent post for today. A key point is that one’s individual wrongdoings are more than a personal matter. They have consequences for our loved ones, communities, and society overall.

Confession of sins, repentance, and turning around appear to the theme of the day not only for Jews.  They also appear to be making a comeback among Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals. The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting feature on the return of repentance – specifically confessing one’s sins. “Confession Makes a Comeback” (page W1).

Even some Lutherans, whose founder Martin Luther opposed the sale of indulgences (the ability to get one’s time in Purgatory reduced or eliminated), are restoring a sacrament that they say they neglected for too long.

Take some time, tune up your conscience, make that phone call, send that card, forgive and ask to be forgiven. You might get a dose of your own medicine – we all do. Get straight with God and your neighbor. Find peace.

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Posted by on Sep 21, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Faustina Kowalska and The Divine Mercy

St. Matthew the Apostle

St. Matthew by Caravaggio

According to tradition and some internal evidence, St. Matthew was the author of the Gospel that bears his name. He was also the tax collector referred to in the Gospels who turned to follow Christ. Tax collectors of the time were the most reviled of all sinners.

According to Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish writer (30 BC – 45 AD), as cited by Maureen B. Cavanaugh in her article, “Private Tax Collectors: A Roman, Christian, and Jewish Perspective”

“They [Romans] deliberately choose as tax collectors men who are absolutely ruthless and savage, and give them the means of satisfying their greed. These people who are mischief-makers by nature, gain added immunity because of their “superior orders,” obsequious in everything where their masters are concerned, leave undone no cruelty of any kind and recognize no equity or gentleness . . . as they collect the taxes they spread confusion and chaos everywhere. They exact money not only from people’s property but also from their bodies by means of personal injuries, assault and completely unheard of forms of torture.”

Tax collectors were independent contractors who frequently got out of control, since there were few safeguards to protect the local populace in ancient society. Interestingly, Ms. Cavanaugh’s article is a cautionary history lesson in the context of plans by the United States government to outsource tax collection to independent contractors.

Jesus’ association with tax collectors was even more scandalous than his association with prostitutes and members of terrorist organizations such as Simon the Zealot. Tax collectors were so despicable that their ritual “dirtiness” defiled everything in a house that they entered. In contrast, a thief only defiled those things that he touched in the house.

After his conversion, Matthew was not free from controversy. His Gospel established a hostile attitude toward Jews that persisted for almost 2,000 years. Since the Gospel According to Matthew refers to the temple and city of Jerusalem in their state before their obliteration in 70 A.D., some scholars conclude that the Gospel was written prior to that year. St. Matthew’s stance toward Jews can be understood in the context of a struggle between Jews regarding adherence to their traditional faith or conversion to Christianity. St. Paul lists himself as a persecutor of early Christians. In fact, his conversion occured while he was on a mission to track down believers.

Douglas R. A. Hare’s monograph “The Theme of Jewish Persecution in the Gospel According to St. Matthew,” asks whether St. Matthew exaggerated the persecution and what effect it had on his theology. Using Christian and Rabbinic sources, Hare concludes that the persecution was directed at Christian missionaries, as opposed to Christians in general.

We see this continuing contest after the destruction of 70 AD in the efforts of St. John Chrysostom to stem Jewish influence in the Christian community in Antioch in the fourth century. It was not until 1965 that the Second Vatican Council, in its decree on relations with non-Christians, “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), that the Church told her members to adopt a posture of respect and dialog with Jews.

The Gospel of St. Matthew, in its beauty, is a central document in Christianity. The emphasis on Christ as the Messiah and the passing away of Judaism are central themes. Pharisees, those staunch guardians of Judaism from the rampant Hellenistic paganism of the time, won’t make it into the Kingdom before repentant tax collectors and prostitutes.

If we substitute  the words “Faithful Christians” for “Pharisees” we get some idea of how incendiary the message still is today.

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