In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul prophesies,
Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
“and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins” (Rom.11:25-27).
Here St. Paul speaks of ethnic Israel, which encompasses the descendants not simply of the Jewish people but of all the twelve tribes, most of whom were assimilated into the pagan Assyrian Empire after the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 B.C. Paul makes clear that God has not abandoned those of Israelite heritage who haven’t yet embraced their promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 11:1-2, 9:4-5).
Even though Paul was a self-described “blasphemer” (1 Tim. 1:12-14), he can attest to God’s ongoing fidelity to the Jewish people, as the Lord merciful took pity on him (Acts 9, 22:6-16). In addition, in referencing Jeremiah 31:33 and Isaiah 27:9 in Romans 9:27, Paul reaffirms that Israel’s covenant salvation is fulfilled in Jesus, beginning with baptism, just as Paul experienced (see Acts 2:37-39).
The First Christians Were Jewish
The question becomes, how will “all Israel will be saved”? That is, how will the words of the prophet Zephaniah be fulfilled, that all peoples will serve the Lord “with one accord” (Zeph. 3:9)?
In summary, waiting around for a special divine intervention is contrary to the mission Jesus gave his Church. Indeed, Christ’s direct intervention with Paul on the road to Damascus is an evangelistic outlier. For the vast majority of the Jewish people—as with people in general around the world—Christ works through his Church, giving it the Great Commission “to make disciples of all nation” (Matt. 28:18-20).
In giving witness to our Jewish friends, we should humbly recognize our Jewish heritage, including that Jesus founded his Church as the restored and fulfilled kingdom of Israel, and he did so on the foundation of St. Peter and his apostolic confreres (Matt. 16:18-19, Eph. 2:14-22).
The Second Vatican Council affirms this:
The Apostles, the Church’s main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ’s Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people (Nostra Aetate 4).
In other words, properly understood, becoming a Christian is not a repudiation of Jewish identity, but rather the covenant fulfillment thereof, beginning with baptism as the salvific New Covenant analogue for circumcision (Col. 2:11-15), and the sacrifice of the Mass serving as the New Covenant Passover communion sacrifice, as well as also fulfilling the Day of Atonement and Melchizedekian sacrifices (1 Cor. 5:7, 10:14-22, 11:23-32; see Gen. 14:18-20). This is precisely why Paul and many other Jews in the early Church embraced Catholicism: because they saw it as the prophesied fulfillment of their beloved Jewish religion.
Historical and Modern Obstacles
In its zeal to will the good of Jewish people by proclaiming Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and Savior of the world, the Church has often relied on its temporal power instead of leaning on the Lord. Those efforts have included coercive measures for Jews to become Catholics, expulsion of Jews when they didn’t convert (e.g., in Spain in 1492), and subjecting Jews to periodic Sabbath sermons from Catholic priests for more than 250 years, a practice Pope Pius IX ended in 1848. These were among the actions for which Pope John Paul II sought forgiveness on the Day of Pardon in the Jubilee Year of 2000.
Many Jews remain resistant to Catholic efforts because they often associate the Person of Jesus with the misdeeds of his disciples. In turn, the Church has muted her outreach, as reflected in the 2015 statement from the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews:
The Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed toward Jews. While there is a principled rejection of an institutional Jewish mission, Christians are nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews, although they should do so in a humble and sensitive manner.
Though the statement disclaims in its preface that “the text is not a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church,” it unfortunately has reflected the Church’s general policy for several decades.
I charitably propose a much-needed modification of that policy.
Removing Human Obstacles: God’s “Shekinah Glory”
God is omnipresent, but the Jewish people know that the Lord dwelled most intimately among his people in the wilderness tabernacle en route to the promised land (Num. 9:18, 22), and then in the Temple in Jerusalem:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34-35; see 1 Kings 8:10-11).
Based on the Hebrew verb shakan (to dwell), the ancient rabbis refer to this intimate divine presence as the Shekinah Glory, as the Lord reigned from his mercy seat atop the Ark of the Covenant in the most holy place (see Exod. 25:17-22). In the Old Covenant, only the high priest could draw near for intimate communion on behalf of the Israelites, and he but once a year on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16).
In definitively atoning for our sins, Jesus tore in two the Temple curtain that separated the most holy place from the holy place (Matt. 27:51), signifying that all could now draw near to him for intimate communion. In addition, the New Covenant fulfillment of the Ark of the Covenant is the tabernacle, in which our risen Lord Jesus dwells gloriously in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, a sacrament that also fulfills the sacred but heretofore merely symbolic Bread of the Presence within the Temple holies (see Exod. 25:23-30). Also, Jesus’ New Covenant Shekinah Glory is not confined to the central sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem; rather, our eucharistic Lord dwells among the nations, or the Gentiles, in every Catholic church tabernacle around the world, fulfilling, in part, the words of the prophet Malachi (1:11; see Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] 1330, 1379, 2643).
Further, the tabernacle lamp signaling Christ’s real presence fulfills the Temple lampstand that testified to the Lord’s intimate presence in the most holy place (see Exod. 26:33-35). As the Jewish Talmud provides,
God instructed Aaron to kindle the Candelabrum: “Outside the Curtain of the testimony in the Tent of Meeting” (Lev. 24:3). The dividing curtain is referred to here as: The Curtain of the testimony, to indicate that the illumination of the Candelabrum is testimony to all of humanity that the Divine Presence rests among the Jewish people (Menachot 86b, emphasis original).
Such a biblical presentation will resonate with our Jewish friends, making them more likely to draw near for eucharistic adoration if welcomed. Also, as I’ve written elsewhere, you don’t need to be Catholic, or even in a state of grace, to draw near to Jesus for eucharistic adoration, and quiet adoration without exposition is more likely to attract inquiring Jews than the liturgical ceremony associated with eucharistic exposition. Also, as the Code of Canon Law provides regarding parish churches, “Unless there is a grave reason to the contrary, the church in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved is to be open to the faithful for at least some hours every day so that they can pray before the Most Blessed Sacrament” (can. 937).
In summary, Eucharistic adoration will enable our Jewish friends to intimately encounter the real Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and Savior of the world, who can speak them to personally in their hearts—an encounter that can—and will, with God’s grace—culminate in the joy of the baptism and partaking of the New Covenant Passover.
So what are we waiting for?
If we don’t believe in the power of our eucharistic Lord Jesus and thus drawing near to him in adoration, how can we expect anyone else to believe?
We will likely receive strong pushback from some Jewish leaders—and also from some Church leaders who view such an outreach as harmful to Catholic-Jewish relations. We just need to be serenely resilient (John 14:27), confident in our Lord Jesus Christ that we are carrying out his mission in a manner motivated by his divine charity (John 3:16-17). With the support of Pope Leo and bishops and priests around the world, we could not only jump-start the Church’s outreach to our Jewish friends, but also re-energize our mission to the whole world.