December 29, 2000 - The Heritage of Abraham: The
Gift of Christmas
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
L'Osservatore Romano - 29 December, 2000
(Translated from the Italian by Murray Watson. Our thanks to SIDIC for
making this available.)
At Christmas, we exchange gifts, in order to bring joy to others, and
to share in the joy which the choir of angels announced to the shepherds,
calling to mind once more the gift par excellence which God made to humanity
when he gave us his Son Jesus Christ. But God prepared for this gift
over the course of a long history, during which, as St. Irenaeus says,
God became accustomed to being with human beings, and human beings became
accustomed to being in communion with God.
Gratitude to our Jewish brothers
This story begins with the faith of Abraham, the father of those who
believe, and also the father of our faith as Christians, one who, through
faith, is also our father. The story continues with the blessings granted
to the patriarchs, the revelation to Moses and Israel quotes exodus toward
the Promised Land. A new stage opens up with the promise of an unending
kingship the promise made to David and his descendants. The prophets
in turn interpret this history, calling people to repentance and conversion,
thus preparing the human hearts to receive the ultimate gift.
Abraham, father of the people of Israel, father of faith, thus becomes
the source of blessing, for in him "all the families of the earth
shall call themselves blessed " (Genesis 12:3). The task of the
Chosen People is, therefore, to make a gift of their God-- the one true
God-- to every other people; in reality, as Christians we are the inheritors
of their faith in the one God. Our gratitude, therefore, must be extended
to our Jewish brothers and sisters who, despite the hardships of their
own history, have held on to faith in this God right up to the present,
and who witness to it in the sight of those peoples who, lacking knowledge
of the one God, "dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Luke
1:79).
Israel and the Church are inseparable
The God of the Jewish Bible (which, together with the New Testament,
is also the Christian Bible)--a God at times infinitely tender, and at
times so severe as to inspire fear--is also the God of Jesus Christ and
of the Apostles. The Church of the second century had to resist the denial
of this God by the Gnostics and, above all, by Marcion, who created a
dichotomy between the New Testament God and the "inferior" Creator
God who was the source of the Old Testament. The Church, however, has
always maintained its faith in a single God, the Creator of the world,
and the author of both Testaments. The awareness of God contained in
the New Testament, which finds its summit in the Johannine definition
that "God is love" (1 John 4:16), does not contradict the past,
but rather serves as a summary of all of salvation history, which initially
had Israel as its central figure.
For this reason, the voices of Moses and the prophets have rung out
in the Church's liturgy from its very beginnings until today; Israel's
psalter is also the great book of the Church's prayer. As a result, the
primitive Church did not pit itself against Israel, but in all simplicity
believed itself to be the legitimate continuation of Israel. The splendid
image of chapter 12 of the book of Revelation of a woman clothed with
the sun, crowned with twelve stars, pregnant and suffering in the pangs
of giving birth is Israel, which was "to rule over all nations with
an iron scepter" (Psalm 2:9). Nonetheless, this woman is transformed
into the new Israel, the mother of new peoples, and she is personified
in Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The bringing-together of these three meanings--
Israel, Mary, the Church--shows how Israel and the Church were, and are,
inseparable for the Christian faith.
A new vision of Israel-Church relations
We know that every act of giving birth is difficult. Certainly, from
the very beginning, relations between the infant Church and Israel were
often marked by conflict. The Church was considered by her own mother
to be a degenerate daughter, while Christians considered their mother
to be blind and obstinate. Down through the history of Christianity,
already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in
many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led
to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience
of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology,
which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the
people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance
to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited
anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this latest tragedy that a new vision
of the relationship between the Church and Israel has been born: a sincere
willingness to overcome every kind of anti-Judaism, and to initiate a
constructive dialogue based on knowledge of each other, and on reconciliation.
If such a dialogue is to be fruitful, it must begin with a prayer to
our God, first of all that he might grant to us Christians a greater
esteem and love for that people, the people of Israel, to whom belong "the
adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
worship, and the promises; theirs are the patriarchs, and from them comes
Christ according to the flesh, he who is over all, God, blessed forever.
Amen" (Romans 9:4-5), and this not only in the past, but still today, "for
the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29). In
the same way, let us pray that he may grant also to the children of Israel
a deeper knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, who is their son, and the gift
they have made to us. Since we are both awaiting the final redemption,
let us pray that the paths we follow may converge.
Israel's faith - the foundation of our faith
It is evident that, as Christians, our dialogue with the Jews is situated
on a different level than that in which we engage with other religions.
The faith witnessed to by the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament for Christians)
is not merely another religion to us, but is the foundation of our own
faith. Therefore, Christians--and today increasingly in collaboration
with their Jewish sisters and brothers--read and attentively study these
books of Sacred Scripture, as a part of their common heritage. It is
true that Islam also considers itself as one of Abraham's offspring,
and has inherited from Jews and Christians this same God. Muslims, however,
follow a different path, and so dialogue with them calls for different
parameters.
To return to the exchange of Christmas gifts with which I began this
meditation: we must first of all recognize that everything we have and
do is a gift of God, which is gained only through humble, sincere prayer.
It is a gift that must be shared between various ethnic groups, between
religions who are seeking a better grasp of the divine mystery, between
nations who seek peace, and between peoples who wish to build a society
where justice and peace reign. This is the program sketched out by the
Second Vatican Council for the Church of the future, and we Catholics
ask the Lord to help us to persevere on that path.
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