A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Matthew VIII and ecumenism with Jews March 7, 2014

The Gospel for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday in the 1962 Missal (actually, mine is 1945, but the reading is the same) is from Chapter VIII of St. Matthew’s Gospel (verses 5-13).  Towards the end, Our Blessed Lord says some things that would appear, to me, to contradict much of the modern “ecumenical” attitude in the Church, especially with regard to the Jews:

At that time, when Jesus had entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion, beseeching Him, and saying: Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy and is grievously tormented. And Jesus saith to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion making answer, said: Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers, and I say to this: Go, and he goeth; and to another: Come, and he cometh; and to my servant: Do this, and he doeth it.

And Jesus hearing this, marveled, and said to them that followed Him: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee. And the servant was healed at the same hour.

————End Quote———–

While this Gospel is normally taken as a glorious exegesis on faith, which it is of course is, this second half is also most significant.  In it, Christ refers to the Gentiles being the prime recipients of the New Covenant, and prophesies the Jewish rejection of the same.  There were certainly many Jewish converts to the early faith, and the Apostles were entirely Jewish in origin, but we also know from 2000 years of history that many Jews, and especially the Jewish religious establishment, rejected Christ’s Sacrifice, the life of Grace, and the entire New Covenant.

And, Our Blessed Lord seems to make clear that this rejection will result in their damnation. He refers specifically to the children of the present kingdom – the Old Covenant, the Jewish religious state, then under Roman domination, but formerly with their own kings – as being cast out for their refusal to accept Christ.

Unfortunately, the post-conciliar ecumenical movement, extending even to the very highest level of the Church in the form of the past several popes, routinely not just implies, but directly states, that the Old Covenant is somehow still operative and that Jews have their own “path to salvation” even while deliberately rejecting Christ – which many modern-day Jews make it a point to do.  It is not true charity to leave people in error, to tell them their religious heritage, which they certainly hold dear, is somehow salvific.  It reeks of universal salvation and indifferentism of a kind that would have shocked Catholics just a few decades ago.

Beyond this one quite, there are of course numerous portions of Sacred Scripture which would seem to directly contradict the underlying rationale for the entire ecumenical movement, especially that portion of the movement directed at non-Christians.  This is just one small reference point.  There are dozens of others.

But as we see abroad in the Church today, more and more, there are efforts to undermine if not obliterate Dogmas founded on an incredibly sure foundations of direct references from Scripture as well as 2000 years of Tradition.  The Church in Germanic speaking countries is just about totally run amok, with bishops claiming fornication is no longer a sin, that contraception use is morally acceptable (in spite of direct statements claiming this use is mortally sinful going back to the very, very earliest Church – and before), and of course that maybe bigamy is OK, and go ahead and present for the Blessed Sacrament while you remain married to two people, at least in God’s eyes.

To the extent that the Holy Father seems to be at least toying with some of these notions, as well, it is certainly scandalous and profoundly unnerving to faithful Catholics.  I don’t have a big point with this post, other than to relate that I was struck by this seeming condemnation in advance of the modern ecumenical movement by Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ was always very direct and plain with regard to salvation: either you accept Him as Son of God, observe the commandments, and practice virtue in cooperation with Grace, or you will not be saved.  You will suffer eternal torments in hell.

It is amazing that there are people in the Church – uneducated or educated to the point of imbecility, I know not – that appear to have utterly forgotten their Scripture.  Or, they are simply so overwhelmingly influenced by the world and its errors that they have grown cold in the Faith.

Difficult times, to be certain.  I can only advise more prayer and penance, for ourselves and our Holy Mother Church.