Here is the greeting and message Benedict XVI gave today to the
Jewish community at the John Paul II Cultural Center.
My dear friends,
I extend special greetings of peace to the Jewish community in
the United States and throughout the world as you prepare to
celebrate the annual feast of Pesah. My visit to this country
has coincided with this feast, allowing me to meet with you
personally and to assure you of my prayers as you recall the
signs and wonders God performed in liberating his chosen people.
Motivated by our common spiritual heritage, I am pleased to
entrust to you this message as a testimony to our hope centered
on the Almighty and his mercy.
To the Jewish community on the Feast of Pesah,
My visit to the United States offers me the occasion to extend a
warm and heartfelt greeting to my Jewish brothers and sisters in
this country and throughout the world. A greeting that is all
the more spiritually intense because the great feast of Pesah is
approaching. "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you
shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your
generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever"
(Exodus 12: 14). While the Christian celebration of Easter
differs in many ways from your celebration of Pesah, we
understand and experience it in continuation with the biblical
narrative of the mighty works which the Lord accomplished for
his people.
At this time of your most solemn celebration, I feel
particularly close, precisely because of what Nostra Aetate
calls Christians to remember always: that the Church "received
the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom
God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant.
Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of
that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the
wild shoots, the Gentiles" (Nostra Aetate, 4). In addressing
myself to you I wish to re-affirm the Second Vatican Council's
teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and reiterate the Church's
commitment to the dialogue that in the past forty years has
fundamentally changed our relationship for the better.
Because of that growth in trust and friendship, Christians and
Jews can rejoice together in the deep spiritual ethos of the
Passover, a memorial (zikkarôn) of freedom and redemption. Each
year, when we listen to the Passover story we return to that
blessed night of liberation. This holy time of the year should
be a call to both our communities to pursue justice, mercy,
solidarity with the stranger in the land, with the widow and
orphan, as Moses commanded: "But you shall remember that you
were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from
there; therefore I command you to do this" (Deuteronomy 24: 18).
At the Passover Sèder you recall the holy patriarchs Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, and the holy women of Israel, Sarah, Rebecca,
Rachael and Leah, the beginning of the long line of sons and
daughters of the Covenant. With the passing of time the Covenant
assumes an ever more universal value, as the promise made to
Abraham takes form: "I will bless you and make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing... All the communities of the
earth shall find blessing in you" (Genesis 12: 2-3). Indeed,
according to the prophet Isaiah, the hope of redemption extends
to the whole of humanity: "Many peoples will come and say:
'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of
the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may
walk in his paths'" (Isaiah 2: 3). Within this eschatological
horizon is offered a real prospect of universal brotherhood on
the path of justice and peace, preparing the way of the Lord
(cf. Isaiah 62: 10).
Christians and Jews share this hope; we are in fact, as the
prophets say, "prisoners of hope" (Zachariah 9: 12). This bond
permits us Christians to celebrate alongside you, though in our
own way, the Passover of Christ's death and resurrection, which
we see as inseparable from your own, for Jesus himself said:
"salvation is from the Jews" (John 4: 22). Our Easter and your
Pesah, while distinct and different, unite us in our common hope
centered on God and his mercy. They urge us to cooperate with
each other and with all men and women of goodwill to make this a
better world for all as we await the fulfillment of God's
promises.
With respect and friendship, I therefore ask the Jewish
community to accept my Pesah greeting in a spirit of openness to
the real possibilities of cooperation which we see before us as
we contemplate the urgent needs of our world, and as we look
with compassion upon the sufferings of millions of our brothers
and sisters everywhere. Naturally, our shared hope for peace in
the world embraces the Middle East and the Holy Land in
particular. May the memory of God's mercies, which Jews and
Christians celebrate at this festive time, inspire all those
responsible for the future of that region-where the events
surrounding God's revelation actually took place-to new efforts,
and especially to new attitudes and a new purification of
hearts!
In my heart I repeat with you the psalm of the paschal Hallel
(Psalm 118: 1-4), invoking abundant divine blessings upon you:
"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love
endures forever. Let Israel say, 'His steadfast love endures
forever.' . . . Let those who fear the Lord say, 'His steadfast
love endures forever'."
From the Vatican, 14 April 2008
© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
