Let’s start from square one: I believe my religion is the true one — the one that came from, well, you know, God. If I am a logical person, I believe that other folks’ religions are not true (at least not where they contradict mine, which is all true), because God, being, you know, divine, does not contradict Himself. Follow me? Now, since my religion makes me right with God (it being His religion, after all), and since other religions can’t to that, then I want to share my religion with them — those others, who don’t have it yet. Good so far?
How do I do that? One way (there are others) is that I can pray for them — pray to God, that is — that He will enlighten their hearts. Doesn’t that make sense?
Now, pretend that my religion is Catholicism (which it is) and that the other fellow is Jewish. Can I pray for his conversion, for God to “enlighten his heart”? Apparently I shouldn’t, because Father Lawrence Frizzell — director of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey — would find my doing so “a disappointment.”
“This [new Good Friday prayer] is not what we had hoped for,” said Father Lawrence Frizzell, director of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange. “There has been considerable discussion among those of us involved in Jewish-Christian relations,” said Frizzell, who has worked with Gall on interfaith projects. “I don’t know how to interpret this in terms of the larger picture. I would say in terms of people involved in Jewish-Christian relations, this is a disappointment. But I don’t want to say this is a harbinger of things to come.”
The prayer in question is a prayer for the conversion of the Jewish people, not for their destruction, pain, hurt, or extinction. It’s wishing something good to them.
Father Frizzell’s reaction makes you wonder if he accepts our “square one,” doesn’t it?
I, for one, hope this new prayer is a harbinger of things to come.
