Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger: from The Promise (2)


We publish here an extract from the book of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926-2007), Archbishop of Paris, prominent Jewish Catholic. The priests of the Saint James Vicariate meditated his thoughts during their annual retreat in October 2016.

promesse

Clearly, it is impossible to share Israel’s hope without having shared in its purifications. This supposes that the path by which the heart is gradually converted and prepared – up to and including the experience of powerlessness and failure before God’s demands - be truly followed. Otherwise, the danger of illusion is immense. Experience and history show that this is no imaginary danger. The danger, if we do not pass by this path of purification, is to receive Christ merely as a new form of the gods that dwell in men’s hearts, to turn Christ into the image of our own desire, or to give the gods of the pagans, the gods of the nations, a name which would be that of Christ or of the God of Israel.

Thus, rather than being converted, truly turning back to God, man appropriates God and his revelation and, thus, refuses salvation.

To believe in Christ is precisely to receive, as a grace, the entry into Israel’s history, and to receive the fruits of that entry as a free gift of God. Paul underlines this when he writes, “And all were baptized... For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ” ( 1 Corinthians 10:2-4), all the while affirming that all that belongs specifically to Israel has not been taken away from it, but is henceforth offered to the pagans as well. There is no shortcut; we cannot do without this path. Otherwise, idolatry will continue to reign.

It results that the Old Testament has not been “invalidated,” according to a current expression, by the coming of the Messiah, but, on the contrary, has been made accessible and open to pagans who, without him, would not have had access to it. They share in its hope and riches by Christ who fulfills it. Christ, at the same time, gives them the first-fruits of this hope.

The Old Testament is not a propaedeutic teaching, a literary preface, nor a collection of themes and symbols: it is a true pathway, both necessary and relevant – relevant, not because of its anecdotal connections, but by communion and obedience to God, the present spiritual reality of entry into the mystery of the Election.

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