Tag: Jewish liturgy

Rosh Hashanah 5773/2012-13

Pope with Shofar.jpgA blessed Rosh Hashanah (head of the year) to our Jewish brothers and sisters!!! The Jewish calendar marks 5773.

The feast of Rosh Hashanah is remembrance that we didn’t make ourselves. It is a fitting opportunity to make the biblical connections of God’s creation of the world. Some will call this feast a time to get your spiritual house in order. Thus, a time of prayer and reflection.
Rosh Hashanah is observed variously according to the Jewish which is followed.

The feast begins on Sunday, September 16 and ends Tuesday, September 18 (in the evening).

Catholics don’t celebrate Jewish holy days, why?

Not long ago a friend asked me why Catholics don’t celebrate
the Jewish holy days. Good question.

A response to the question as to why we
don’t celebrate the Jewish holy days would be along these lines: the Paschal
Triduum is the Christian Passover, the true Pasch. Even the Greek and Latin
name for Easter tells us that (as also the derivation of the name for Easter in
Spanish, French, Italian from the same root).

In one sense, Jesus’ teaching was
in continuity with Judaism (Mt 5.17: “Think not that I have come to abolish
the Law”); but he also in Matthew 5 puts himself forward as a higher Lawgiver
than Moses (“you have heard it said, but I tell you…”). I suggest
reading Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s book, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, which makes this
point very clear. The Pope himself said in Jesus of Nazareth that Neusner’s book is
an excellent example of honest and reasoned argument between a believing Jew
and the Jesus of the gospels.

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