Why a Passover Seder

Why Catholics Do Seders

Christ’s Last Supper was a Passover Seder. During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we re-present the Seder that He celebrated, particularly the Consecrations but also the washing of hands and prayer over the gifts. However, many Catholics don’t realize that Christ’s Last Passover Seder, like every Passover Seder, probably took about three hours. There’s much more in it than most Catholics know, so on occasion we do a “parish Seder,” which is an authentic Passover Seder but with added Catholic commentary explaining the dipping, the washing of feet, the Consecrations, etc..

Judaism is not a religion apart from the Catholic faith, but the foundation of our own Catholic faith. Jesus was a devout rabbi Who celebrated the Passover every year of His mortal life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church § 578 tells us, “Jesus, Israel's Messiah and therefore the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, was to fulfill the Law by keeping it in its all-embracing detail – according to his own words, down to the least of these commandments. He is in fact the only one who could keep it perfectly.” Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote just a few years ago: “It is evident that dialogue of us Christians with the Jews stands on a different level with regard to the dialogue with the other religions. The faith witnessed in the Bible of the Jews, the Old Testament of Christians, is for us not a different religion but the foundation of our own faith.” (“L'eredità di Abramo” (The Heritage of Abraham), in L’Osservatore Romano, December 29, 2000.)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church § 839 says, “The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them be-long the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”

And, of course, the Catholic Canon of Sacred Scripture, defined by the Council of Trent, includes the Old Testament.

We emphasize it now because Vatican II called for greater understanding of the Church’s Jewish roots. The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, § 9, called the Catholic Church the new Israel. Since then the Church has issued numerous statements to support that greater understanding.

What About Cantata Domino

Pope Eugenius IV’s Bull, Cantata Domino, February 4, 1442

It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.

Current Papal Teaching

Pope John Paul II, in the first words of his new pontificate, declared in Redemptor Hominis, § 2:

I am linked with the whole tradition of the Apostolic See and with all my Predecessors in the expanse of the twentieth century and of the preceding centuries. I am connected, through one after another of the various ages back to the most remote, with the line of the mission and ministry that confers on Peter's See an altogether special place in the Church. John XXIII and Paul VI are a stage to which I wish to refer directly as a threshold from which I intend to continue, in a certain sense together with John Paul I, into the future, letting myself be guided by unlimited trust in and obedience to the Spirit that Christ promised and sent to his Church.

As part of that continuing line of apostolic teaching, the Holy Father observed at, § 11, “The Council gave particular attention to the Jewish religion, recalling the great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews.”

Pope John Paul II followed with numerous statements on the Church’s Jewish heritage. He went to Bet Hatefutsoth, the main synagogue of Rome, on April 13, 1986, accompanied by Rabbi Elio Toaff, then Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI addressed a delegation of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations on June 9, 2005, less than two months into his pontificate, during which he declared,

[Vatican II] affirmed the Church’s conviction that, in the mystery of the divine election, the beginnings of her faith are already to be found in Abraham, Moses and the Prophets. On the basis of this spiritual patrimony and the teaching of the Gospel, it called for greater mutual understanding and esteem between Christians and Jews and deplored all manifestations of hatred, persecution and anti-Semitism. At the very beginning of my Pontificate, I wish to assure you that the Church remains firmly committed, in her catechesis and in every aspect of her life, to implementing this decisive teaching.” Pope Benedict XVI then continued with emphasis, “In the years following the Council, my predecessors Pope Paul VI and, in a particular way, Pope John Paul II, took significant steps towards improving relations with the Jewish people. It is my intention to continue on this path.

On August 19, 2005, only two months later, Pope Benedict XVI went to visit Cologne’s blue-domed Roonstrasse Synagogue, the largest north of the Alps, where he declared, “I wish to reaffirm that I intend to continue with great vigor on the path towards improved relations and friendship with the Jewish People, following the decisive lead given by Pope John Paul II.”

Pope Benedict XVI has continued this emphasis. On March 16, 2006, during his regular weekly audience, the Holy Father explained one vital connection between the followers of God’s earlier revelation and the completion of that revelation:

The number 12, which evidently refers to the 12 tribes of Israel, reveals the meaning of the prophetic-symbolic action implied in the new initiative of founding the holy people again. After the downfall of the system of the 12 tribes, Israel awaited the reconstruction of this system as a sign of the arrival of the eschatological time (this can be read in the conclusion of the Book of Ezekiel 37:15-19; 39:23-29; 40-48).

By choosing the twelve, introducing them into a communion of life with him and making them sharers in the same mission of announcing the Kingdom with words and deeds (cf. Mark 6:7-13; Matthew 10:5-8; Luke 9:1-6; 6:13), Jesus wants to say that the definitive time has arrived; the time for rebuilding God's people, the people of the 12 tribes, which is now converted into a universal people, his Church.

By their mere existence, the twelve – called from different backgrounds – have become a summons to all Israel to conversion and to allow themselves to be reunited in a new covenant, full and perfect accomplishment of the old. By entrusting to them the task of celebrating his memorial in the supper, before his passion, Jesus shows that he wanted to transfer to the entire community, in the person of its heads, the commandment of being a sign and instrument of the eschatological assembly begun by him.

Why the Difference

Because the environment is different.

During the 1400s a storm of persecution against Jews arose in England, France and Spain. Many Jews moved elsewhere to wait out the fury while others accepted baptism. In Spain many Jews publicly entered the Catholic faith but privately remained Jewish. These false Catholics, called conversos, began to form a secret network. They grew rich and rose to high positions in the Church, the royal court, and the state, and married into the noblest families of Spain. Because their loyalty was to one another, not to Church or crown, the conversos were a threat to the Church and to Spain. In such circumstances a Catholic who participated in Jewish rituals might well be abandoning his faith and risking damnation.

Today Orthodox Jews and Catholics often see one another as brothers in the great battle to defend worship of God in the public square against secularists who do not want to see signs of God anywhere. Today we are seeing increasing numbers of Jews come into the Catholic Church. Holy Mother Church during the past half century has made the prudential judgment that teaching the great capital virtue of humility and the great theological virtue of charity call for an outreach to Jews.

Why Jews Don’t Do Catholic Rituals

Occasionally someone asks why Jews don’t do Catholic rituals. Three reasons:

(1) Judaism was God’s earlier revelation to man. The Catholic faith is the fulfillment and completion of Judaism. God’s earlier revelation is part of His completed revelation. Jews don’t see the Catholic faith as the completion of their own faith, so they’re not interested in Catholic rituals.

(2) To this day the Jewish rabbis tell their congregations not even to enter a Catholic parish church. The rabbis know that there is so much of Judaism in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and even in our parish sanctuaries, that many Jews who see them and experience the Mass will realize that becoming Catholic would simply complete what they have already begun.

(3) The Catholic Church has always insisted that only Catholics in the state of grace may receive Holy Communion. So even if a Jew were to approach a priest distributing Holy Communion he would not be allowed to receive.