Testimonies

  • A Prodigal Son Returns Home

    The Prodigal Son - RembrandtThis is the story of my return to the Catholic Church. I will attempt to explain how my walk with the Lord these past years has led me to this important and difficult decision, yet one that I make in peace and joy. It is addressed to my Evangelical Christian and Messianic Jewish friends in Israel, and particularly to those who do not believe that one can be a "true believer" and a Catholic at the same time. It is also written as a personal testimony for my many good friends around the world who may be interested in my walk of faith. To them I dedicate this essay and pray that it will help us to grow in unity in loving and worshiping the King of Kings.

  • A Secret Seeker Finds the Messiah

    Orthodox Jewish womanI am an Orthodox Jew by adoption. That is to say, I am a convert to Judaism, according to the halacha. I live in the company of other Orthodox Jews, with my husband and four children, in a religious community in Israel. I also love Jesus and the Gospel message, which I am still learning, and this means that I live my faith life mostly inwardly.

  • He Clothed Me with Garments of Salvation (Isa 61:7)

    Sr. Miryam LeahMy name is Miryam Leah. I am 35 years old – Jewish, Italian, from an ultra-orthodox hassidic family (lubavitch – my father is the shaliach, the “sent one” of the Rebbe), and now for 8 years, Catholic and Dominican sister.

  • In Memoriam: Cardinal Lustiger

    Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, cardinal and archbishop, died on August 5th, 2007, aged 80. At the funeral of Jean-Marie Lustiger, at Notre Dame de Paris on August 10th, his second cousin Jonas Moses-Lustiger read a psalm in Hebrew and placed on the coffin a jar of earth that had been gathered on the Mount of Olives. Then another cousin, Arno Lustiger, bent over the coffin to recite Kaddish. Only when those things were done was the body of Cardinal Lustiger carried inside the cathedral, where Catholic panoply took over.

  • Magdi Allam's Path to Conversion

    Magdi AllamHere is a translation of Magdi Allam’s account of his conversion to Catholicism. The formerly Muslim journalist was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass 2008 in St. Peter's Basilica.

     
  • Messianic and Catholic: Mark Neugebauer

    Mark NeugebauerHaving been raised in a Conservative Jewish home in suburban Toronto, I was a regular attendee at synagogue on Sabbaths and High Holidays. My father is a Holocaust survivor from Poland and my mother’s family escaped the pogroms in Russia. Both settled here in Canada and raised my sister and myself in a Jewish and Yiddish speaking environment where all of our friends were Jewish and Israel was our raison d’être. Christianity was the religion of the outsiders, the faith of anti-semites and Jew-haters, the creed of the Crusaders, Inquisitors, Persecutors, and Nazis. Yet my mother would remind me continually that "Jesus was a Jew"...

  • Saved! Ronda Chervin's Conversion to the Catholic Faith

    Ronda ChervinAs right wing political atheists of a Jewish ancestry, we didn't fit in with anyone around us: not with Catholics, not with the sprinkling of Protestants, certainly not with Orthodox religious Jews in full regalia, nor Reform Jews, nor Zionist atheist Jews, nor left-wing non-Zionist Jews. Later, as a Catholic, I realized that my desire to belong to an identifiable group forever and ever had a psychological as well as a theological reason.

  • The Catholic Liturgical Life as New Exodus

    The desert TabernacleThe Exodus, God's deliverance of Israel out of Egyptian slavery through Moses, prefigured God's redemption of all humanity from the slavery of sin through a new and greater Savior, Jesus the Messiah. The liturgical life of the Israelites in the desert on their way to the Promised Land prefigured the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church as it heads towards its heavenly Promised Land.

  • The Catholic Priest who Discovered he was a Jew

    Fr. Jacob WekslerJacob Weksler was raised a Catholic and became a priest. He later learned he was Jewish and came to Israel, where he found ultra-Orthodox relatives, a mixed welcome at a kibbutz ulpan and a confrontation with the Law of Return.

  • The Hidden Reality

    Ariela AvidanFinding My Jewish Past and My Catholic Present - Growing up in New York City in a very strict Catholic home I began questioning the doctrines of our faith at a very young age. Little did I know that this very same quest brought me to a moment in my life in which I would have all these questions answered for me by G-d, Himself!

  • Torah and Gospel - Other Articles

    Hebrew-Catholic vocation"Hebrew Catholic Vocation" by Aharon Yosef

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Latest Articles

Antoine Levy - 17 February 2024

When we meet cats who grin, that is, people who are naturally nice and warm, we tend to think that they are good people. A grin of the sort gives itself out as an implicit promise of support in time of need. Somebody whom we identify as empathic will be most likely to help. What is very curious is realizing that certain people's cordial grin amounts to...

Gavin D'Costa - 12 February 2024

The unconditional gift of the election of the Jewish people is the theological foundation of Catholic Zionism. Many New Testament texts support the notion that Catholics should endorse ­Zionism. Jesus himself was a Jewish Christian ­Zionist. Catholics accept that the Jewish people still have a providential role to play, and their return to the land of...

Gerald McDermott - 09 February 2024

Critics of Christian Zionism usually dismiss it for one of three reasons: (1) They say it contradicts the New Testament, which replaces the Old Testament focus on a particular land by the vision of a whole world; (2) They think it is the exclusive concern of premillennial dispensationalists; (3) It is said to be more political than theological, attached to...

Yehuda - 04 February 2024

On the one hand, there is the Christian message of unconditional love and its emphasis on self-sacrifice at the hands of those who hate you unjustly: "No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends." On the other hand, there is the logic of war: you want to liquidate those who hate you to the point of murdering your nation by all...

Gerald McDermott - 29 December 2023

Gerald McDermott explores the notion of supersessionism in Christian theology, which suggests the promises made to the Jewish people in the Old Testament, including the land promise, have been superseded by the Christian church. This view has dominated Christian interpretation since the fourth century, leading to the marginalization of the New Testament's...

André Villeneuve - 20 December 2023

Dr. André Villeneuve discusses the role of Israel in the age of the Church on Michael Lofton's "Reason and Theology" podcast. Topics include God's covenant with Israel, supersessionism, the idea of the Church as "new Israel", Israel's role in the age of the Church, the modern state of Israel, Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Israel's role in...