December 3, 2023
/We hope you had a restful Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for, not least the continued blessing of hearing from many of you in connection with CC@S’ all-community program offerings including the Fall Retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos led by Frs. Bob and Xavier, Synod discussions hosted by Sr. Gloria, the Leading Through Faith retreat spearheaded by Deacon John, RCIA, among others. We are grateful for the gifts of your participation and continued enthusiasm and support as we strive to engage more contributors to and readers of CATH-Links and foster community conversations in alignment with CC@S’ core mission and values. We wish everyone a fulfilling season – may the blessings of the miracle, the gift, and the promise of Christmas uplift you and your loved ones!
—Oriana Li Halevy
on behalf of the Intra-Community Council’s CATH-Links team
If you are interested in submitting reflections, meditations, articles, book reviews, etc., see Submit Resources for Publication for submission guidelines. We look forward to your participation!
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Why Christians Must Do More Than Merely Reject Antisemitism [theprincetontory.com] by Professor Robert George of Princeton (BA, Swarthmore; JD, Harvard Law School; MTS, Harvard Divinity School; PhD, Oxford University).
Excerpts: The post-Holocaust period leading up to the Second Vatican Council became a time of deep reflection for the Catholic Church in particular and the occasion for a profound examination of conscience – and the historical record. This bore fruit in the sections on Jews and Judaism of the conciliar document known as Nostra Aetate, the declaration on the Church’s understanding of, and relationship with, non-Christian religions.
Nostra Aetate once and for all repudiated the idea of Jewish collective guilt and the outrageous slander that “the Jews” killed Christ or were “accursed” or “rejected by God” because the Jewish people as a whole did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. It condemned, categorically, all forms of antisemitism and discrimination against Jews. What’s more, it expressly affirmed that there is a ‘common patrimony’ and, indeed, a “spiritual bond” – something not merely historical, though rooted in historical reality – uniting Christians (“the people of the New Covenant”) with Jews (“Abraham’s stock”). Perhaps most importantly, quoting the Jewish Christian St. Paul, it refers to the Jewish people as the “good olive branch onto which has been grafted the wild shoot, the Gentiles.”
Nostra Aetate turned out to be only the beginning of the development of Catholic teaching on Jews and Judaism.Within a decade-and-a-half of its ratification and promulgation by Pope Paul VI as the official teaching of the Church, Karol Woytila, the Archbishop of Cracow in Poland, would become Pope. As John Paul II, he would use Nostra Aetateas the foundation for further elaboration of the Church’s teaching, working out the fuller implications of the Vatican Council’s declaration. It is important to understand that what concerned John Paul in this matter was, above all, theological, not sociological or political. He sought to understand, and to teach, the truth about how the Church properly understands and relates herself to Jews and Judaism…
In one of the most important acts of his long and remarkably consequential pontificate, both those concepts would again be center stage when John Paul made his historic visit, also in 1986, to the Great Synagogue of Rome – the first by any pope – where he made the following profound declaration: The Jewish religion is not extrinsic to us, but in a certain way is intrinsic to our own religion. With Judaism we have a relationship we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way our elder brothers. Driving the point home, John Paul greeted Jewish rabbis in a meeting in Assisi in 1993 as “our dearly beloved brothers of the ancient covenant never broken and never to be broken.” Benedict XVI and Francis have, of course, stood by the teachings of Nostra Aetate and of John Paul II – the teachings of the Church. So will their successors. These are magisterial teachings – declarations of the mind of Christ.
THEOLOGICAL/LITURGICAL EDUCATION
In response to community interest in an educational series on the Mass, we present this excellent series [wordonfire.org] by Word on Fire’s Bishop Robert Barron.
Episode 1: A Privileged Encounter (24:11)
Episode 2: Called Out of the World (23:06)
Episode 3: God Speaks Our Story (24:17)
Episode 4: Responding to God (24:53)
Episode 5: Preparing the Sacrifice (23:04)
Episode 6: The Real Presence Creates Communion (25:36)
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
‘The Chosen’ Christmas special is a ‘beautiful experience,’ show’s creator says [catholicnewsagency.com] “Originally begun as a crowdfunded project, The Chosen is one of the most-watched shows in the world. It has reached more than 600 million combined episode views and has more than 10 million followers on social media. It is also on its way to becoming the most-translated series in history, according to its creators; the first three seasons will soon be available in 50 languages with plans to subtitle in more than 600.” In theaters Dec. 12-17! Tickets [fathomevents.com]
SYNOD OUTCOME
Fifteen hidden gems in the Synod on Synodality report [msn.com] “At the Synod on Synodality, the Western media focused on a limited number of hot-button issues — women’s ordination, married priests and blessing of gay couples. But hidden in the synod participants’ 40-page synthesis are some surprising gems that could lead to significant reform in the church.”
NEW BOOK RELEASE
Christmas at the Nativity has been released in English, Italian, French, and Portuguese.
From the Introduction by Pope Francis: “Awe and wonder are the two feelings that move everyone, young and old, before the Nativity scene, which is like a living Gospel overflowing from the pages of Holy Scripture. It is not important how the Nativity scene is set up; it can always remain the same or change every year; what matters is that it speaks to life. The first biographer of St. Francis, Thomas of Celano, describes the Christmas night of 1223, whose eight-hundredth anniversary we celebrate this year. When Francis arrived, he found the crib with the hay, the ox, and the donkey. Before the Christmas scene, the people who flocked to the place manifested an unspeakable joy, never tasted before. Then the priest, at the manger, solemnly celebrated the Eucharist, showing the link between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. On that occasion, there were no figurines in Greccio: the Nativity scene was created and experienced by those who were present. I am sure that the first Nativity scene, which accomplished a great work of evangelization, can also be an occasion today to summon forth awe and wonder. Thus, what the simplicity of that sign made St. Francis realize persists down to our own days as a genuine form of the beauty of our faith.”
