Friday, February 08, 2008

I had an email...

...about the Holy Father's amending of the "Prayer for the Jews" in the Extraordinary Form of the Good Friday prayers. The Holy Father is absolutely right to respond to Jewish concerns, and with his deep understanding of liturgy wants to ensure that the Church's prayer is at one with the heart of Christ. If we are to obey Christ's command to spread to Gospel to all people, nothing could be more daft than continuing to use a prayer that - even accidentally - caused offence, thus clearly putting people off, rather than attracting them! And all concerned could benefit by taking this in the spirit of the Golden Rule. The new version has clearly been produced with the intention of eliminating offence, so if offence is taken now, it will be unjust.

Meanwhile the Ordinary Form of the prayer, which like other middle-aged and young Catholics I have known for all my Good Fridays, is beautiful and impressive - and it is that version which will be used in the vast majority of Catholic churches across the world.


God bless our Papa Benedict!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think that the new prayer is just beautiful and look forward to praying it in the heart of Jewish Melbourne in a only a few weeks.

What a grace for us to live at this time - how fitting for our beloved Holy Father to have a fingerprint in the Missal that he continues to do so much to promote.

God bless your Lenten exercises!