Written by: Carlo Colonna sj
Category: Liturgy & Prayer (Catholic)

LORD,

That which You have given us, give to all Israel.

May all Israel discover the sweet gentleness and sublimity of the Messiah,

Who is still waiting, and has already been with us for twenty centuries, Yeshua, the Lord.

And together with the Messiah,

May Israel discover the stunning beauty of the Good News that comes from heaven,

The New Covenant capable of bringing to Israel the peace of her God,

Shalom upon Jerusalem

Yeshua, Messiah of Israel


LORD,

The new covenant is based upon the forgiveness of sins

From the excess of your mercy, revealed there where sin abounded.

Therefore remove forever the tragic rejection of the Messiah

that marks the history of Israel ever since You sent to earth

Yeshua, as Messiah.


Twenty centuries have passed since their refusal, LORD,

And to us it seems so long.

Why this rejection?

The Apostle says that You have permitted this for the benefit of us Gentiles,

in view of our gaining entry into the faith of Your Messiah,

But now, nations that were once Christian have come to the point

Where they no longer want to recognize the “Christian roots of Europe”

And in their arrogance and blindness try to live as if You were not

The Lord of life of everyone.


LORD,

In the present time we no longer need Israel to continue refusing the covenant in Christ,

So that we pagan nations may now enter this covenant.

What we need is the opposite.

What is needed in this New Covenant are Jews

The caliber of Peter, Paul, John, James, Bartholomew, and Jude, who,

Fired up by the Spirit will be sent to the nations to convert them once again to the Messiah,

As did the first apostles, sent to all the children of Israel.

We need Jewish women like Mary, the mother of the Messiah, and Mary Magdalene,

To help the incredulous heathens of today to discover the fiery beauty of faith.


LORD,

We need Israel, filled with the richness of Christ;

We need to finally reach the realization of the people of God,

The marvelous hope that Your apostle Paul expressed in this way:

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise [in] your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘the deliverer will come out of Zion, He will turn away godlessness from Jacob; and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’”  (Rm 11:25-27)

We have repeated these words to tell You, LORD, that this hope is not only from a Jewish apostle,

Like Paul, who suffered and cried thinking of his people’s refusal of the Messiah.

We tell You, LORD:

It is also the hope of us Christians of the nations,

Who live dispersed among the cultures outside of Israel,

In which the pagan mentality is the law and the Christian mentality is the exception.

We too are waiting with awe for the “resurrection of the world”

That will come from the raising of all Israel into the faith of their fathers;

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who saw from afar the Messiah, Yeshua, and believed in Him.

Twenty centuries have passed, Lord, yet Israel does not return to its Messiah.

Does this not also seem to you so very long?

For this we say, O LORD, in the power of the Spirit;

Give to all Israel that which You gave the nations in past centuries,

Faith in Yeshua, Messiah, Your Son and Lord of Life.

Amen.

Fr. Carlo Colonna was a Jesuit priest. He lived in Bari, where he was spiritual assistant of a charismatic Covenant Community, the Community of Jesus, engaged in ecumenical dialogue with the evangelical-Pentecostal, Anglican, Orthodox worlds, and with the Messianic Jews. He was a preacher, author of religious songs and writer of numerous books on spirituality and catechesis.

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