10/05/2023

Each day the reading from the Acts chosen by the Church for the Mass records more of how in the first days of the Church, the divide between Jews and Greek-speaking Pagans was not ignored or papered over but faced openly and discussed but not completely resolved. The Jews are still with us.

In the first days of the Church, the Jews were more aware than ever of how from the time of Abraham they had been chosen by God to be his witnesses on earth. They were his people and he was their God. They could not have been at ease in the company of the former pagans, especially at table for dietary laws and sharing of food were one of the basic marks of belief and witness to that belief. 

At the same time they were now witnesses to the Resurrection as were the former Pagans. The Apostles, all Jews, however knew that this was a fundamental shift in the way God had revealed himself and they  knew that their old Law and Covenant had been fulfilled. IAMIAM had revealed himself even further in the Son begotten not made and with the Holy Spirit completed an unimaginable Trinity. 

During their time with him they had not anticipated the Glory of the Resurrection although they could have interpreted some of his remarks to point towards this. At the Ascension, he had told them that he would return and so everything that they did after this was to fulfill his Mission to spread the Good News and prepare to greet him in this world. There must have been, at the time,of the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple an anguish in the Church as great as that at the Crucifixion for these "signs" did not bring about an immediate Parousia.

 I don't know of any discussion about Temple Sacrifice. It seems that the first joint Liturgy enacted by the Baptised was their meeting together on the Lord's Day to praise God and share bread and wine. The deeply devoted among the Jews who knew that their sanctimoniousness had been condemned by Jesus were still the same human beings before and after the Resurrection and their personal Baptism as were the Pagans. Both parties believed in New Life and expected the Parousia in their lifetimes but the Jews had the rightful claim to being the first receivers of God's revelation and therefore have laws and customs direct from the Father.

Thus it was that dietary laws and Circumcision were fault lines along which the completely new phenomenon in world history, the Baptised Church of the Resurrection, could be rocked and potentially destroyed before it had truly begun. This was resolved by a Council of the whole Church in Jerusalem. The whole of what the Church has grown to be is present in the memories and practice of  those first days in Jerusalem. We have to accept that the unity of the infant Church was of the Holy Spirit and that Conciliar Unity over all the centuries has still to be accepted as God's Providence even until the end of time. 

At the first Council we lost men of integrity who would only agree with themselves and at each subsequent Council even that of Vatican 2  there have been similar results. Is this evidence of the power of the "Prince of this World"?

Dear Lord today I felt drawn to St John's image of the vine but was captured by the the nitty-gritty of how Jews and Gentiles could unite into the Institutional Church that you founded on St Peter. St John's image of pruning can be applied to the Church as Person and to us individuals who can respond to your Evergreater person as created persons infused into unity by your Love. May Mary our Mother continue to pray for Your Grace to be directly injected into the hearts of all Clergy that they may care for us sheep in the same way that you, The Good Shepherd, care for all who know you as you do us as living persons.