In light of the inordinate amount of media attention given to the new Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews, I would like to reveal a great secret. As we are constantly reminded, the new prayer in the 1962 Missal will be prayed by only a tiny minority of Catholics. But the new rite (1970), prayed by the vast majority of practicing Catholics, offers the following prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday:
“May Israel recognize in you her longed-for Christ (Israel in te Christum spei suae agnoscat), and may the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of your glory.”
This prayer is taken from the office of Vespers, not the Mass. So it is not recited by (or even with) most of the laity. However, the Pope, nearly all Latin Rite Bishops, and most priests, monks, and nuns bound to praying the Divine Office, will offer this prayer — under pain of sin! The same prayer is repeated on the evenings of the third and fifth Sundays of the Easter season.
For more examples of new-rite prayers for the conversion of the Jewish people, see: Father Brian Harrison on the New Good Friday Prayer.
