Giudaismo messianico

This is the story of my return to the Catholic Church. I will attempt to explain how my walk with the Lord these past years has led me to this important and difficult decision, yet one that I make in peace and joy. It is addressed to my Evangelical Christian and Messianic Jewish friends in Israel, and particularly to those who do not believe that one can be a "true believer" and a Catholic at the same time. It is also written as a personal testimony for my many good friends around the world who may be interested in my walk of faith. To them I dedicate this essay and pray that it will help us to grow in unity in loving and worshiping the King of Kings.

apostolic successionMay we come together to the fullness of that unity in the “one new man” where Messianic Jewish Catholics continue to testify to the faithfulness of the God of Israel in the covenant of circumcision and their commemoration of the Sabbath, and where both Jewish and Gentile Catholics celebrate together the breaking forth of the new creation accomplished in the Lord’s resurrection on the eighth day.

Ariel Ben Ami's and Mark Kinzer's reactions to my study regarding the different ways of understanding Israel have been important and I have appreciated the richness of their contents, albeit correcting some opinions I had expressed.

In this article, I examine three questions: First, the question "who is Israel?" - using as point of reference Fr. Carlo Colonna's five ways of understanding the term "Israel." Second, I discuss the idea of God's blessing that comes "from" Israel and is intended "for" Israel.  Third, I attempt to clarify our own identity and mission as Catholics for Israel in light of Fr. Carlo's five ways of understanding Israel.

Part III: Messianic Judaism and Christian Zionism: The rise of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century. Early Christian Zionism. Early Hebrew-Christians and early Hebrew-Catholics. The turning point: 1967. From Hebrew-Christians to Messianic Jews. The Messianic movement today in Israel and among the nations. Messianic theology and faith; Messianic congregations and worship; Messianic culture and life in Israel. Christian Zionism and Christian supporters of Israel today. Toward Jerusalem Council II - welcoming Jewish believers back into the Church.

Having been raised in a Conservative Jewish home in suburban Toronto, I was a regular attendee at synagogue on Sabbaths and High Holidays. My father is a Holocaust survivor from Poland and my mother’s family escaped the pogroms in Russia. Both settled here in Canada and raised my sister and myself in a Jewish and Yiddish speaking environment where all of our friends were Jewish and Israel was our raison d’être. Christianity was the religion of the outsiders, the faith of anti-semites and Jew-haters, the creed of the Crusaders, Inquisitors, Persecutors, and Nazis. Yet my mother would remind me continually that "Jesus was a Jew"...

If we wish to grasp the meaning of God's Plan in history with regard to Israel, we must go far beyond the issues relating to the present political Israel or any other temporal  vision regarding Israel. We must grasp the role Israel has in God's Plan in the last days of history, wherein we have entered with the end of the time of the nations and the beginning of the time of Israel as God’s nation called in the end times to accept Messiah.

The purpose of my speech is to point out what the change in the relationship between Jews and Christians is about, and especially to show that in this change and in some prophetic events taking place in the world today between Christians and Jews, the heavenly Father is carrying out His plan in history looking more and more towards the day when Christ will return in glory to fulfill the Father's plan upon the world.