An  Invitation TAKEN FROM "The Catholic Church Invites You" by James V. Linden, S.J. Imprimatur - Bernard J. Topel, D.D., Bishop of Spokane December 22, 1958 PART TWO Christ Calls All Men to Union with Him in His One, True Church 6. CHRIST CALLED THE JEWS THEN AS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CALLS THEM NOW Jesus Christ, Who was the Son of God, took upon Himself our flesh to dwell amongst us. He was born into the world a Jew of the House of David. The foundation of His Church He laid upon the rock of Peter, a Jew. His first call went out to His Own people, the Jews. Only then did He send His Apostles, who were all Jews, out among the Gentiles to convert the world. And though many of His chosen people refused to answer His call at that time, He has never forgotten His chosen people, nor shall He ever forget them. Through the Church He founded on Peter, the Catholic Church, His call still goes out to His Jewish children: "Come to Me, all ye who are burdened and I will refresh you" (Matt. 11:28) After Christ had chosen His Apostles and instructed them, it was to the chosen people, His Own people, the Jews, that He sent His Apostles to preach and to command them to become members of His Church. As a result His first followers, who were all converts from Judaism, were Jews. St. Matthew tells us: "These twelve Jesus sent; commanding them, saying: Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10:5, 6). In the Acts of the Apostles we read a confirmation of this. "Then Paul and Barnabas said boldly: To you it behooved us first to speak the word of God ..." (Acts 13:46). Just as God in the Old Law had called Abram out of the house of his kindred and changed his name to Abraham to be the father of His chosen people; just as He had called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt; just as He had spoken to His chosen people directly through the prophets, so now He calls His people to follow Christ through His Apostle Peter. St. Paul, in the letter he wrote to the Jews, his Epistle to the Hebrews, tells them this very same thing. "God," he writes, "Who, in sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the world" (Heb. 1:1, 2). So it was that Christians received their Christianity from the Jews. All the first converts to the faith were Jews. Jesus Himself was of Jewish blood, being a descendant of the House of David. Because of this He is sometimes called "Jesus Son of David" (Mark 10:47). Beginning with John the Baptist, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the twelve Apostles and thousands of His disciples who made up the primitive Christian Church, all were Jews. For thousands of years since the time of Adam, mankind looked forward to the coming of the promised Redeemer. Mankind, in retrospect, can now look back two thousand years and know that the promised Redeemer has come in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Christianity, as has been well said, is, then, but the flowering of Judaism. Christianity is, then, not so much the repudiation of Judaism as it is the acknowledgment of its mission as the type and figure of Christ's Church that was to follow it. "Do not think," said Christ, "I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). In place of the priesthood of Aaron that existed in Judaism, now there is the priesthood of Christ. In place of the temple in Jerusalem, now there are temples the world over. In place of the sacrifice of sheep and oxen, now there is the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Christ Himself. For the salvation of the one chosen people, that the Jewish religion primarily represented, now there is the Christian religion established by Christ for the salvation of all men. Out of Judaism truly has come as was prophesied "a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" (Ruth 2:32). In God's mercy would that all the chosen people would see that light! 7. MODERN JEWS WHO HAVE ANSWERED CHRIST'S CALL There were great Jews in the time of the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets. There were great Jews in the time of Christ, Peter and Paul, James, John, and the rest of the Apostles. There are great Jews now, converts to the Catholic faith, who looked back and saw how the work of redemption of the Messiah that was to come had been accomplished through the centuries since the time of Christ. They could not escape the conviction that Jesus Christ was and is the Messiah the Jews had been promised. They recognized further that the Church He founded upon the Apostle Peter for the salvation of men was the Church continued in the successors of Peter, the bishops of Rome---the Catholic Church. David Goldstein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, writes so beautifully: "Therefore when a Jew becomes a Catholic, he no more denies the faith of his fathers of the days when Judaism was the Mosaic religion in its fullness than the butterfly, if it had the power of reason, could rightly deny the caterpillar from which its beauty evolved. [1] Such, too, is the testimony of all the great Jews in our day who have embraced the Catholic faith. For them answering the call of Christ is not so much the rejection of Judaism as it is the acceptance of Christ. Such it was to Peter and to Paul and to all the Apostles who left all to follow Him. It is said that Franz Werfel, the Jewish author of The Song of Bernadette, fully believed in Christ. He wrote so touchingly and so knowingly of the innermost sentiments dwelling within the soul of the little peasant girl who saw the Blessed Mother of God that his heart must have been a Catholic heart. Before his untimely death he did not embrace the Catholic faith. As he expressed it, he did not wish to desert his suffering and persecuted people. Such was the feeling, too, of the renowned, modern philosopher, Henri Bergson. Before he died Bergson asked that a Catholic priest pray at his grave. To feel as these men did that it was the destiny of the Jewish race to suffer and that it would be ignoble to desert their people in their suffering is a natural feeling. It is evidence of the nobility in the heart of the Jew. However, it should not prevent a Jew from accepting Christianity. No man, Jew or Gentile, should put family or fortune, race, culture, or tradition before almighty God. Let me here recall the names of but a few of the renowned Jews of our day who have found the fulfillment of Judaism in Christ as members of the Catholic Church founded by Christ upon Peter. Fulton Oursler, author, associate editor of the Reader's Digest, a man who spent many years of his life investigating the claims of Christianity. He was the author of The Greatest Book Ever Written and The Greatest Story Ever Told. Raissa Maritain, wife of Jacques Maritain, perhaps the greatest philosopher of our day. Mrs. Maritain is a philosopher and scientist in her own right. She and her husband are converts to the Catholic faith. David Goldstein, lecturer, columnist, author, labor leader, who found his way from Socialism and Judaism into the Church. Professor Eugenio Zolli, the grand rabbi of Rome, who says the step from Judaism to Christianity is but a renewal. He tells the record of his conversion in his recent book, Before the Dawn. Alphonse Ratisbonne, a devout son of Abraham. He and his brother, Father Theodore, founder the Congregation of Our Lady of Zion whose work is to bring "Shalon Al Israel" (Peace to Israel). Today there are more than two thousand souls dedicated to this work in convents throughout the world. Jacob Liberman, who, born in a very pious Jewish family in France, was determined to bring honor to his father by excelling in the study of the Talmud and the Torah. Later on he became a Roman Catholic priest, co-founder and first superior general of the Holy Ghost Fathers. He is hailed now as venerable on all the Catholic altars of the world. Father M. Raphael Simon, doctor of medicine and psychiatry, who in early life had resolved never to abandon the Jewish faith. By becoming a Catholic he says this resolution is kept and he is now a member of the Order of Cistercian Monks. Rosalie M. Levy, who wrote Why Jews Become Catholics. Karl Stern, who wrote The Pillar of Fire. These are only a few of the many renowned Jews of our day who have found their way with Peter to Christ. They have not abandoned their ancient faith; they have embraced it in its fullness. As Father Simon wrote in his story, The Glory Of Thy People: "While the Jews were the first fruits of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Gentiles became the fullness of His fruit and of His Church." As St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans: "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for there is the same Lord of all, rich toward all who call upon Him ..."(Rom. 10:12). "I say then hath God cast away His people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew ..." (Rom. 11:1, 2). The Catholic Church is, then, always open to any son of Abraham who wishes to follow the call of Christ. 1. John O'Brien, Where I Found Christ (New York: Doubleday), p. 150. 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