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The Holy Year and Reconciliation between Christians and Jews
Cornelis A. Rijk

According to the intention of Pope Paul VI, the Holy Year should be a year of reconciliation and renewal. In accordance with this idea the pope takes up the great theme of Jubilee in the Bible and stresses the biblical sources of the Christian celebrations. Awareness of this biblical dimension leads to a better understanding of the scope and depths of that reconciliation which is the basic theme of the Holy Year. It is clear that this reconciliation is primarily concerned with our personal relationship to God; it is a sincere return to him. However, since love of God cannot be separated from love of our neighbor, it follows that reconciliation with God cannot be envisaged without reconciliation with our neighbor. This applies particularly to interpersonal relations in the Catholic community, but it goes much farther. When we return to God and are prepared to be reconciled with our brothers we understand more clearly the urgent prayer of Jesus that all his followers should be one. Here the whole question of Christian unity has its place in the perspective of the Holy Year. When we celebrate reconciliation we not only purify and strengthen our personal and community relations with God: we also recognize in a new and effective way God's will expressed in divine revelation. Reconciliation between Christians of different churches and ecclesiological communities then becomes not only important but imperative, because it is an essential element of God's revelation in history. « May they be one in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me » (John 17:21). Christian unity is a sign of the messianic kingdom, and the division of Christians into different churches is a contradiction in terms. If, then, the Holy Year includes pilgrimage to the tombs of Peter and Paul, if it is a return to God and to the sources of the Church, it is essentially an ecumenical reconciliation.

Here, however, I would like to go still farther, beginning with the words of Karl Barth during his last visit to Rome in 1966: « Relations between the Catholic Church and many other churches, between the Secretariat for Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches, are now good: the ecumenical movement is really inspired by the Spirit of the Lord. But let us not forget that there is basically only one great ecumenical question: our relations with Israel, with the Jewish People. » What do these words of Karl Barth mean? Why are our relations with the Jewish People so important? Why do they constitute the great ecumenical question?

Let us note, first of all, certain historical facts. It is known, unfortunately not sufficiently well, that throughout the centuries relations between Christians and Jews have been characterized by misunderstanding, opposition, prejudice, even by discrimination and persecution. Certain ideas took root in the Christian mentality: Judaism replaced by the Church, the Jews no longer the People of God, without even the right to exist; and all this because most of them did not recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. The story of relations between Christians and Jews is one of misunderstanding, even of contempt.

It was at the Second Vatican Council that, for the first time in its almost 2,000-year-old history, the Church officially recalled St. Paul's words about the relationship between Christians and Jews. She knows, then, that even after Christ's coming the Jews still remain the beloved of God, and that there is a very rich spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews. For these reasons she rejects all forms of anti-Semitism and both recommends and encourages mutual knowledge and esteem (Nostra Aetate 4).

After so many centuries of painful misunderstanding, it is clear that there is a long way to go before an atmosphere of sincere respect and deep understanding is created. A whole process of reconciliation, as yet scarcely begun, has to be completed. Moreover, this process involves not only human relations and brotherly reconciliation, but also a new reconciliation with God's plan. Indeed, St. Paul, reflecting on these relations, speaks of a mystery (Rom. 11:25), a mystery that signifies a very deep aspect of the history of salvation, that touches the mystery of the Church herself (Nostra Aetate 4 begins: « As the Council searches into the mystery of the Church it remembers the spiritual bonds which tie the people of the New Covenant to the offspring of Abraham »).

It is at this point that the perspective of the meaning of Jewish-Christian relations for Christian unity opens up. It is both significant and logical that, on the official Church level as well as on that of episcopal conferences, secretariats for relations with the Jewish people should be closely linked with ecumenical work in the strict sense. This fact expresses the Church's realization that Christian unity and relations with Judaism are connected at a very deep level.

Let us study this subject more closely. It is clear that the quest for Christian unity is not a question of the mere restoration of structural unity. Even theological discussion on the doctrinal and disciplinary differences among churches and ecclesiastical communities, important and indispensable though it may be, is only one aspect of the ecumenical question. Ultimately it is a matter of knowing the whole of divine revelation and of living it in the history of the Church and of the world. According to the Epistle to the Ephesians 1:23, the Church is the Body of Christ, the plenitude of him who fills all in all. The Epistle to the Colossians 1:19 says of Christ that God was pleased to make all fullness dwell in him. The ecumenical movement, then, seeks to restore the original unity by returning to, by discovering and by living ever more fully the whole of revelation, the fullness of God in Christ. Ecumenism is thus a common return, spiritual and historical, of all Christians to God and to his revelation. This return to God and to others doubtless comprises many forms of reconciliation necessitated by the multiple forms of unilateralism, apologetics, opposition and conflict which have caused Christians to neglect or even to forget certain aspects of the Word of God. In true ecumenical encounter, we discover more fully both one another and the Lord himself.

Thus, in a new and positive awareness of the Jewish people and its religious tradition, divided Christians could find, by returning to their sources, a strong incentive and a great help towards the rediscovery of their unity. We must realize in the first place that Judaism bases its very existence on divine revelation expressed in the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible (« Old Testament »), and it lives this Bible continually both in its liturgy and in the practice of its daily life. On the other hand the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God for all Christians (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16; Rom. 15:4). Positive contacts between Christians and Jews in a spirit of openness and sincere respect can help Christians to rediscover certain neglected aspects of biblical revelation, such as a sense of creation, a sense of man, etc.

Then, when Christians and Jews meet, something very serious happens. Both communities appeal to the revelation of God, but at the same time a profound difference separates them, because Christians believe that the Messiah has come and the Jews that he has not yet come. In such a perspective the division of Christians is not only an objective sin against the will of Christ: it becomes an anomaly, a contradiction in terms. How can it be maintained that the messianic kingdom has come when that unity which is the sign of the kingdom is missing? Peaceful confrontation with Judaism, by obliging Christians to return to their origins, can lead them to understand better the gravity of their divisions and to overcome their mutual opposition. The great and urgent question of today's world is this: what does it mean to a Christian to say that the Messiah has come, to be a messianic community? The question of Christian unity directly affects the credibility of the Church. It is a fact proved by experience that discussions between divided Christians and Jews facilitates for Christians the rediscovery of their unity.

Moreover, the dialogue which is beginning between Christians and Jews can contribute in a very real way to the surmounting of certain theological differences which have separated Christians for centuries. Two examples will suffice. The centuries-old debate between Catholicsand Protestants over Scripture and Tradition can receive new light from a deep encounter with Judaism, for Jews see here no opposition but two aspects of the same living reality. The discussion on the Eucharist — symbol or reality — can also be helped by the Jewish conception of the presence of God, the Shekhinah, in the signs and the celebration of the Covenant meal (see Fr. Bouyer's books on this subject). Many other themes could be mentioned but these examples suffice to give some idea of the importance of a positive relationship between Christians and Jews.

Let us end this brief reflection with a last important point. If in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council a true reconciliation is to be effected between Christians and Jews, after so many centuries, it must be done with respect for the other as he is. This respect has often been absent. There has been great tension between those who believe that the Messiah has already come and those who say that he has not yet come, between the « already » and the « not yet ». But Christians also believe that the Messiah is to return, to come again in glory, and like Peter they know that they must prepare for this day and hasten its coming (2 Peter 3:12). In mutual respect for the mystery of the Church and for the role of Judaism (cf. Rom. 11: 25), reconciliation between Christians and Jews can produce a tension that is both positive and fruitful. In this tension the partners stimulate and lead each other to a better knowledge of the Lord and of the history of his salvation, so that together they may prepare and hasten the full realization of the messianic kingdom and the coming of the glorious Messiah — a blessing for all nations.