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Catholic Jewish Trauma and Suffering: A Hebrew Catholic Reflection

April 23, 2017, 7:59 pm
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I don't think many Gentile Catholics realise how traumatic it can be for Jewish people who accept Yeshua as the Messiah and the rejection they receive from many of their family and friends. Many brand them as apostates and betrayers of their people and history. The more orthodox a background they come from the worse it is. 

There are numerous secret believers in Yeshua in the Jewish community whose entire lives and the lives of their family would be ruined and destroyed if they openly became a Christian. Often Gentiles will give them pious advice that one should be ready to sacrifice all for Yeshua while they themselves have never faced such a decision. 

The intense suffering of such Jews can lead to serious depression and blackness of a deepest dark night such as occurred in the life of  the Venerable Francis Libermann (1802-1852). The suffering and disappointed he caused his father who was a Chief Rabbi of Saverne played on his mind all his life. He would fall into the darkest of mental nights of anguish. He shattered his father's life long dream that his son would be a rabbi like himself. The son of Theodore Herzl a father of the Zionist movement became a believer in Yeshua and a Catholic but suffered greatly and eventually committed suicide.

Not only do those who become Catholics suffer at being branded as apostates and betrayers by their fellow Jews but they then receive little compassion or understanding by many of the Gentiles in the Church they join. Many Catholics of Jewish background, especially in the past, kept that they were Jewish hidden. Those who were bold enough to maintain their Jewishness in the Church were/are looked down upon as weak brethren who are clinging to their Jewish customs like dog to its vomit or a pig to its swill. They just haven't realised their new Pauline freedom from all Jewish bondage- goes their reasoning. They also seem to think that any keeping of Jewish customs is saying that they believe they are necessary for salvation. Jews keeping Jewish customs is for sanctification not salvation.

These are some of the reasons that Jews in the Church need their own community with its own structures where they can be allowed to be fully Jewish and fully Catholic. Many Jews in the Church can end up going back and forth between the Church and Synagogue due to their double calling or vocation that cries from the depth of their being. Some will immerse themselves in the Gentile Catholicism but a part of their Jewish soul feels empty because it is not being fed. Others return to the Synagogue and immerse themselves in their Jewishness but they hunger for their Messiah and the riches of the sacramental life. Many Catholic Jews are in a sense crucified between the Church and Synagogue and misunderstood, judged and marginalised by both certain non-Messianic Jews and certain types of Gentile Christians.

Jews are an emotional warm hearted people who like to vigorously discuss and they often struggle in a rather less emotional environment of solemn Gentile piety and politeness. They often feel like they have talked too much or put their foot in it when mixing with their fellow Gentile Catholics. I think this is why when Jews from the different churches and from the Messianic movement get together in the Helsinki conversations on Jews in the Church that a special bond forms. They "get" one another. It is not the Gentile Catholics fault that they just don't "get" it, they are unable in most cases. 

A Hebrew Catholic friend of mine Ronda Chervin tells how she left a certain American Catholic community. They asked her why she was leaving. She responded "Because I want to talk". They said, "That's Ok what do you want to talk about?". she replied, "I don't want to talk about anything in particular I just want to talk!!!!". 

Hans Herzl son of the Zionist Theodore Herzl as a 12 year old British school boy.

Herzl's son Hans, mentioned above, left a suicide note that said: 
 
"A Jew remains a Jew, no matter how eagerly he may submit himself to the disciplines of his new religion, how humbly he may place the redeeming cross upon his shoulders for the sake of his former coreligionists, to save them from eternal damnation: a Jew remains a Jew ... I can't go on living. I have lost all trust in God. All my life I've tried to strive for the truth, and must admit today at the end of the road that there is nothing but disappointment. Tonight I have said Kaddish for my parents—and for myself, the last descendant of the family. There is nobody who will say Kaddish for me, who went out to find peace—and who may find peace soon ... My instinct has latterly gone all wrong, and I have made one of those irreparable mistakes, which stamp a whole life with failure. Then it is best to scrap it." 

He wrote this and then shot himself on the day of the funeral of his sister Paulina who had died of a drug overdose. His other sister Trude was to die in 1943 in a Nazi death camp. Maybe if he had the hope of a warm, vibrant and loving Catholic Jewish community or ordinariate supported by their fellow Gentile Catholics, he and others like him would have chosen a different end. Father Elias Friedman the founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics saw the need of such a community to alleviate the alienation of Jews in the Church from their Jewish heritage and to end the "regime of assimilation" which had been the policy of the Catholic Church since the demise of the mother Church of Jerusalem.
 
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The Tawny Lion of the North

April 23, 2017, 11:04 pm
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Are you coming?

O Catholic Lion of the North,

With your tawny mane of hair and beard,

In the dark days ahead,

In the midst of a European Crisis,

Of civil war between left and right,

And Isis freely reigning,

North Korean missiles soaring,

American Eagle and Chinese Dragon roaring,

While the Russian bear attacks from the rear,

The Western world shakes with dread and fear,

Bloodshed in Cockerel France,

While Leopard of England is clawed to death,

Water rises and fire spreads,

And the Holy Father imprisoned praying for a miracle,

Where are you Ruadh?

The son of the King of Saxon,

Will you hide in the far West or East?

Or in the southern antipodes like Arthur,

Until you arise in the far North,

To battle of the Birch Tree,

The crescent and the Bear fleeing from your kingly face,

Up goes the cry God for Harry, England and St George once again,

A new Henry the Lion arises from the North,

A South Saxon Duke who like Arthur has trekked,

Into the Arctic and the Antarctic snowy waste,

In service to his fellow man,

A champion of the wounded and damaged soldiers,

And consoler of diseased African youth,

And the son of England’s Rose.

Give up your desire for sparkle and blondes,

Embrace your cross and cross the Tiber,

To your long prophesied destiny,
                                           O sleeping Lion-like Prince of the North.

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Rebbe Nachman and Jacob Frank: A Universal Reparation

April 27, 2017, 7:15 am
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 My ancestor Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

In Likutey Moharan I:164 Rebbe Nachman of Breslov reveals through a parable his approach to revealing the deep hidden mysteries of the Messiah and his Kingdom. Jacob Frank had tried to reveal these mysteries openly but both the Jewish and Christian communities of the 18th century were not ready for Torah observant mystical Jews to maintain their Jewishness within the Catholic Church. In the end Frank was forced to call his followers, who had received open baptism, to silence and to observe their Jewish customs secretly and privately and to appear as Gentiles to their fellow Catholics. As a result of this approach the Frankists were assimilated into the Gentile culture within a few generations.

Other groups such as those led by Reb Moshe ben Zalman the son of the Alter Rebbe and some of Rebbe Nachman's children and grandchildren also were baptised (though more quietly) and took Gentile names and occupations but within a few generations their descendants also had lost their Jewish identity. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov while respecting Frank, as did the Baal Shem Tov, realised that this model would not work as the majority of the Jewish people were not ready to receive the Messiah's identity and that the Church was not ready to receive them with their full Jewish heritage in tact. He realised he would have to water-down the strong Messianic medicine and conceal it in stories and allegories. In Likutey Moharan he spoke of the Jewish people as a Healer and of the Universal Church as a great physician or doctor. However the Jewish people wanted their medicine in the form of folk medicine not the strong drugs and therapies that the Universal people (Catholics) offered.

Hillel Zeitlin a leading Breslov scholar stated that the person of the Messiah and the messianic salvation was at the heart of Rebbe Nachman's concerns. Others have commented that Rebbe Nachman was not just concerned with individual salvation but also national or Jewish salvation and also universal salvation. His famous Universal tikkun was for all people. This was a Catholic or universal reparation which would repair for the damage caused by Sabbateanism and its p'gam habrit (defiling the covenant). This defiling refers to all sexual impurity not just masturbation as seems to be the rather unbalanced obsession of some Hasidim. This universal Marian reparation alludes to the ten sefirot and the ten types of song found in the Psalms. This alludes to the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary in Hebrew with its pattern of nine echoing phrases and the hidden tenth referring to the voice of the Virgin which also mirrors or echoes the nine revealed decrees of Genesis 1 and the tenth hidden one which is the Divine Word and Voice.

Yehuda Liebes a leading Israeli scholar on Jewish mysticism in his studies on the influence of Jacob Frank on Rebbe Nachman comes to correct conclusions that the mysterious journeys and stays in certain places in Rebbe Nachman's life is connected with Rebbe Nachman's 'tikkun ha Kelali' ( universal reparation) which is connected with the Frankists. Yehuda Liebes writes: "R Nahman's journey to Kamenets on his way to the Holy Land, as well as his journey to Lvov, seem to have some connection with his endeavours to amend the Frankist heresy."However like Gershom Scholem and others, Liebes lumps Frankism with Sabbateanism and thus in my opinion misunderstands both Frank and Rebbe Nachman. Jacob Frank was a former Sabbatean who led many Jews out of Sabbateanism in which they had become morally and spiritually impure. This came about by an emphasis on the mysterious 'Eleh' (Goddess of the Zohar) and realising that the only one who could remedy or repair (tikkun) such spiritual pollution was the Lady of the Zohar who Frank came to realise was the Lady of Czestochowa. Those devoted to Her were able in union with her to perform complete or universal acts of reparation. 

Frankism was a Marian movement and Frank stated that they chose Catholic Poland because it was a nation that best understood "the Mother". It was the hidden Frankist or Zoharist leaven that spread in the rest of the Catholic Church that led to a new Marian Age in the history of the Church and world that led to the proclamation of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (in 1854) and Assumption (1950). This in a sense was a renewal or revival of the earlier Marian mysticism of the Middle Ages going back to St Hildegarde and St Bernard of Clairvaux and its manifestation among the Rhineland mystics of Catholicism and the Ashkenazi Hasidim of  Judasim coming forth from the noble Davidic families found among both the Jewish and Catholic communities (as well as the Muslim). It was from among these Davidic families that the mystical Book of the Zohar was revealed and would influence the Zoharists (Frankists). Just as their ancestors David and Solomon were led astray by sexual and sensual lust and impurity so some of their Davidic descendants the Sabbateans and the Occultists were led astray.

Frank's followers were divided between those who openly embraced the Catholic faith and hid their Jewishness and those who remained as religious Jews who hid their Catholicism. Rebbe Nachman was one of those hidden followers of the ideas of Frank and his concept of tikkunim for those fallen into the depth of sin, while not agreeing with Frank's open embrace of the Roman Catholicism of their day. Rebbe Nachman alludes to Jacob Frank as the 'choice silver of the tongue of the Tzadik' in 'Likutey Moharan 29:11: Rabbi Moshe Mykoff translation of the Likutey Moharan states; "And this is: That one, too, has found bat maZleh- this corresponds to 'noZlim from LeBaNon'- from the LiBuNa (whiteness) of the mind...All this is alluded to in the words (Proverbs 10:20) "keseF nivchaR leshoN tzadiK' [the last letters of which spell FRaNK.]"So here in "Likutey Moharan" Rebbe Nachman in a hidden way, reveals that Jacob Frank is a true messenger of the Hidden Tzadik. Here we see clearly Jacob Frank described as the one that has found devotion to the Daughter of Destiny (the Mystical Miriam, the Lady of Sorrows who is the lady of Czestochowa) and the way of sexual and intellectual purity flowing (nozlim) from her. It is through devotion to this mysterious Lady that sinners find a way to repair for their past and the damage it has done.

Frank and Nachman taught a general reparation for the generations that had fallen into sexual depravity of the Sabbateans. Thus they offered a spiritual way that was a forerunner of Pope John Paul II's 'Theology of the Body'. John Paul II offered a spiritual way and reparation for the modern generations who have also become morally and spiritually depraved. Rebbe Nachman also went to the Frankist Catholics in order to encourage them to continue following the true teaching of Frank rather than the distorted version being spread by the Prague Sabbateans who had joined with Eva Frank and were leading some of the Frankists back into Sabbatean errors.



Rebbe Nachman and Jacob Frank cannot be understood correctly without really understanding what tikkun (reparation) achieves. The concept of confession is also very important in this spiritual reparation. The Tzadik does not just do tikkun (reparation) for himself but on behalf of his followers, on behalf of all Jews- both religious and secular and for all men tainted with the sin of Adam. He associates the Sabbatean sin with this original sin of Adam. The Sabbateans were from the Mystical cream of the Jewish people and scholars but they like Adam and Eve fell through a desire for sensual delight of experiencing knowledge. Yehuda Liebes writes: "R. Nahman's messianism entails an act of tikkun, and this is the general meaning of 'ha-tikkun ha-kelali'. This name aptly describes R. Nahman's approach in general, since he perceived his mission as the tikkun of man...and the tikkun of his community, as well as that of the whole Jewish people from all their sins; both their wordly sins, which were first and foremost sexual, and the numerous doctrinal sins of his generation that had ravaged traditional Jewish structures ("the Enlightenment"). But above all, he was concerned with the tikkun of the original sin..." 

Yehuda Liebes in his work "Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism" also believes that Rebbe Nachman was influenced by the writings and teachings of Jacob Frank. He lists a number of parallels in their writings. "I shall ...remark on the several other parallels, beginning with those between R. Nahman and Jacob Frank, who, I believe, had a profound influence on R. Nahman. During his youth, in the years of his Hitbodedut...R Nahman may have come across Frankists who had remained Jews, of whom there were many in Podolia." (Yehuda Liebes in 'Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism')

Rebbe Nachman spent a mysterious hidden 8 months in Lvov among the non-Jews. He saw that among the Gentiles of Europe are the descendants of those Israelites who worshipped the golden calves and that part of his role is to do tikkun (reparation) in order to restore the unity of the two Houses of Judah and Ephraim.  Likutey Moharan I:164 also alludes to this mysterious stay of Rebbe Nachman in the Gentile Catholic city of Lvov for 8 months. Not only was he visiting literal Catholic medical doctors but he was secretly meeting with the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and other Frankist Jews. After this he burnt his previous writings and hid his teachings in stories and in the mystical language of the Zohar. Some stories were hidden and were not revealed to the general public such as the "Story of the Armour" which was part of the universal reparation because of its obvious drawing on Pauline themes in the New Testament.

In the end both approaches bore some fruit by causing Hasidic Judaism and Catholicism to draw closer due to the hidden input of the Frankist mystical ideas in both faiths. We now await a time when the Church will be ready for a Jewish ordinariate or community in its midst that is fully Jewish and fully Catholic so that Israel's heritage may find its place in her midst once again. The true depth of Rebbe Nachman's teaching will be brought to light when it is unveiled by Catholic Jewish Breslov Hasidim in the future time of peace when the Jewish people are re-grafted to the Olive Tree. 
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St Joseph the Worker: the Hidden Works of Divine Will

April 30, 2017, 8:53 pm
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Today is an important feast day for our little community of monacelli (Little Monks) who live at St Joseph's Hidden Place in St Joseph's Hidden Valley in the Huon Valley Parish in the far south of Tasmania. It is the feast of St Joseph the Worker. All of us take the name Joseph as part of our consecrated name. However one of our brothers-Brother Stephen Joseph of the Immaculate Heart- had Joseph as his birth name and he is our handyman-builder-carpenter in our community. He and Brother John-Joseph of the Immaculate Womb (who is very artistic and creative) recently began the restoration of a large outdoor statue of St Joseph which a teenager had taken an axe to it and seriously damaged it. 

We pray daily to St Joseph for all our needs and the needs and intentions of all our benefactors as well as for those of all who ask us and for those of our parish. We perceive him as our protector and Master of Prayer. We hide in the mystical cloud that is Joseph's heart which is the Shadow of the Father. The servant of God Luisa Piccarreta wrote in the "Book of Heaven" Volume 29 states:



...After this I continued my acts in the Divine Fiat, and my poor mind stopped in the little house of Nazareth, where the Queen of Heaven, the celestial King Jesus and Saint Joseph were in possession of and lived in the Kingdom of the  Divine Will. So that this kingdom is not estranged to the earth: the house of Nazareth, the family that lived in it belonged to this kingdom and they held it in full vigor... (May 31, 1931)

Joseph lived in this Kingdom of the Divine Will on earth in a very deep way that he was totally eclipsed (has become nothing like Our Lady) and totally inundated or filled with God's attributes or reflections. The 25th day meditation of the "Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will" of the servant of God Luisa Piccarreta about St Joseph being eclipsed and inundated by the seas of the attributes of Jesus and Mary states:




...Now, you must know that for your Mama, for dear and sweet Jesus, and for Saint Joseph, the little house of Nazareth was a Paradise. Being the Eternal Word, my dear Son possessed the Divine Will within Himself, of His own virtue; immense seas of light, of sanctity, of joys and of infinite beauty resided in that little Humanity. I possessed the Divine Will by grace; and even though I could not embrace immensity, as did beloved Jesus – because He was God and Man, and I was always His finite creature – yet, in spite of this, the Divine Fiat filled Me so much, having formed Its seas of light, of sanctity, of love, of beauties and of happinesses; and the light, the love and everything that a Divine Will can possess, which came out of Us, were so great that Saint Joseph remained eclipsed, inundated, and lived of our reflections.

Dear child, in this house of Nazareth, the Kingdom of the Divine Will was in full force. Every little act of ours – that is, working, starting the fire, preparing the food – were all animated by the Supreme Volition, and were formed on the solidity of the sanctity of pure love. Therefore, from the littlest to the greatest of our acts, immense joys, happinesses and beatitudes were unleashed. And we remained so inundated as to feel ourselves as though under a pouring rain of new joys and indescribable contentments...
St Joseph was living and dwelling in the heart of the House of Nazareth, which is the heart of the Kingdom of the Divine Will. St Joseph was totally eclipsed or darkened and inundated by these seas so that he can become a pure mirror or reflector of these seas of the Divine Will in a hidden manner to Luisa and others. In the same manner in which Our Lady is the Dark Lady (Black Madonna) and the Night (Lilah) in order to perfectly reflect the Divine Light so does the darkened or eclipsed Joseph. Our Lady was always dark and inundated or full of grace whereas Joseph had to be darkened (as he was not immaculately conceived) in order to be inundated or filled.



The mystery of the hidden and eclipsed state of  St Joseph is connected to the mystery of the ''darkness over the face of the deep'' in Genesis 1. Jesus is that "face of /over the deep" and his infinite seas are the deep (the mystery of the Incarnation of the God-man). The darkness who is Joseph in Eternity is the protecting dark cloud hiding the mysteries of the Immaculate Conception and Incarnation from Satan and his angels. St Joseph as the Shadow of the Father also hides in his darkness the "synergy" of the Spirit of God and Our Lady who is the "face over the waters" (the created seas of the attributes (love, mercy etc) which is the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception). 

No one, including Luisa Piccarreta, can receive a grace that gives them access to a greater sanctity than Jesus, Mary or Joseph. Luisa can only attain such a sanctity as the grace of living in Divine Will on earth through her union with, in and through Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The Kingdom of the Divine Will is the Holy House of Nazareth in which Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in Divine Will on earth (this was heaven or paradise on earth restored). Luisa and all those who follow her in receiving the grace of living in Divine Will can only enter the Kingdom of the Divine Will through entering in a spiritual and mystical manner the Holy House of Nazareth. Luisa also confirms the role of Joseph in her childhood Memories notebook. Jesus told her:


“My daughter, your life must be hidden with Us in the House of Nazareth. If you work, if you pray, if you eat, if you walk, you must give one hand to Me, the other to our Mother; and look at St Joseph to see if your acts are like Ours. 
Then you will be able to say, ‘I make a model of what Jesus, my heavenly Mother and St Joseph do. Then, I copy it.’ I want to repeat My hidden Life in you according to the model you have made. In you I want to find the works of my Mother and St Joseph, as well as My own works...
...My daughter, take heart, don’t be discouraged. If you don’t know how to do something, ask Me to teach you and I’ll do it right away. I’ll speak to you of Our actions, Our intentions, and Our constant Love. I’ll show you how I, like sea, and they, like two rivers, overflowed into each other; that We didn’t have much time to talk, since Love absorbed us so much. See how far behind Us you are? You must work hard to catch up to Us. I don’t want you behind, but with Us; so be silent and pay attention for I do not want you to be behind Us but in Our midst.”
 St Jospeh is the Hidden Tzaddik (Righteous or Just One) that Rebbe Nachman of Breslov often refers to cryptically in his writings. Rebbe Nachman (1772-1810) is one of the greatest mystics and teachers of Hasidism in Jewish history:

 "And all this is an aspect of "The Concealment", when the beauty and splendour of the whole world becomes concealed. However there is a Tzaddik who is beauty, splendour and grace of the entire world, and who is symbolised by Joseph, who was "beautiful in form and handsome" (Genesis 39:6), "a beautiful sight, the joy of the entire land" (Psalm 48:3). When the beauty and splendour of this genuine Tzaddik, who is symbolised by Joseph, is revealed in the world by becoming renowned and esteemed, then the eyes of mankind will be opened. And whoever is included in the genuine grace of this Tzaddik, the world's grace and beauty, by following him and surrending his self to become part of this Tzaddik's soul, will have his eyes opened, and he will be able to see." (Likutey Moharan I: 67)

St Isadore of Seville stated that the full glories of St Joseph will not be revealed unto the latter days. It is also interesting that Rebbe Nachman of Breslov alludes to St Joseph in regards to the four temperaments or character traits of melancolic, choleric, sanguine and phlegmatic. 

"...since this Tzaddik represents the source of the four basic character straits, and as such stands above them, the eyes of whoever becomes close to him and becomes part of his genuine grace will become opened, to be able objectively look into himself and to see how he is faring in each of them. That person becomes part of the beauty of God's world, by virtue of the splendour of the hidden Tzaddik having been revealed to him. Further more, as a result of one's eyes having been opened by the splendour of the genuine Tzaddik being revealed, one will also be able to see and behold the greatness of God and the Awesomeness of His world. The reason for this is that when this Tzaddik becomes revealed and renowned, he "gets a name" - becomes famous- in the world. Hidden within this name of the Tzaddik is the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, for His Name is intimately bound with ours (Yerushalmi, Taanit 2). Thus, when and to the extent that the "name" of that Tzaddik becomes esteemed, so does God's Name become all the more esteemed." 
Rebbe Nachman concludes Likutey Moharan I: 67 with: 

"And with this we return to BeREShYT, the beginning, the RoeSh BaYiT, the head and master of the house of the world, namely, the genuine Tzaddik, who is beauty and glory of the world, represented by Joseph, alluded to in the verse, "Joseph is the ruler...he supplies food..." (Genesis 42:6), because he is the RoeSh BaYiT, the master of the house of the world. For he is the one who maintains the Temple and every Jewish house and home...And when the name of this Tzadik, who represents the head of the house, becomes esteemed, the eyes of the Jewish people are opened, as above. So this is the connection of "bereshit' to "l'einei kol Yisrael". Bereshit- this is the master of the house, the Tzaddik, who is the glory of the world, through whom are opened "einei kol Yisael", the eyes of all the Jewish people." 

 This seems to say that when St Joseph is revealed in all his glories then the time of the veil being removed from the eyes of the Jews will occur in fulfillment of Romans 11 and all Israel will be saved.
Rebbe Nachman’s teaching has many layers of meaning and he reveals many different aspects of the concepts of Joseph. Joseph is the firstborn of the Chayot associated with the ox or oxen (also unicorns). He represents one of the four minds in the Temple.
A ‘Joseph’ is one who gazes and sees the inner meaning of all created things. Joseph the Patriarch was one such gazer of secrets, as were St Joseph the Tzaddik and St Joseph of Arimathea. The ultimate Joseph in Jewish thought is the Messiah son of Joseph who the Christians call Jesus son of Joseph. 


The Four Minds in the Temple are represented by the four Cherubim in the Temple. Two of the Cherubim being the golden male and female children on the Ark of the Covenant; and the other two Cherubim being of olive wood overlaid with gold that stand on either side of the Ark. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov discusses the mystery of these Four Minds in Likutey I:67. This mystery of Joseph is connected to the Four Minds in the Temple which are also represented by the four chambers of the Head tefillin according to Rebbe Nachman.  

"And all this is a manifestation of Mind, because the very first thing to arise from the four letters of God's Name are the Four Minds, alluded to in the verse " I have filled [Betzalel]with a Divine spirit- with Wisdom, Understanding, knowledge and with all craftsmanship" (Exodus 31:2). Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge and Craftsmanship are symbolic of the four Minds (Tikuney Zohar introduction)..." 

Wisdom represents the Mind that is Mashiach (Messiah) ben  (son of) Joseph and his mission, then in salvation history comes the mission of the Mind who is the Sabbath Queen who is the Mother of the Mashiach , then comes the mission of the Mind who is the Tzadikess (the Righteous woman) who is to reveal the Knowledge of Living in the Divine Will and finally to complete the mission comes the Mind who is the Hidden Tzaddik Joseph as the craftsman of God. St Joseph's mission is still partially hidden until the time of the full revelation of the glories of Joseph. Then will the Jews embrace in fullness the Kingdom of the Divine Will under the patronage of St.Joseph. Thus the work that St Joseph was doing was the work of living in the Divine Will which manifested outwardly as his work as a master craftsman in the village of Nazareth.

 

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Temple Theology, Kiss the Son and Joseph: A Hebrew Catholic Reflection

May 5, 2017, 8:39 pm
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In recent years many scholars such as Mark Kinzer and Andre Villeneuve and others have written about the Temple or Tabernacle theology found in the Gospel of John and the New Testament. A Jewish writer Leonora Leet writes that the inner secret of the Temple cult of Second Temple Judaism is concerned with the mystery of the "Divine Son"or "Son of Man". Others have revealed that the whole physical structure of the Temple is built in the image of the "Divine Man". This "Divine Man" or "Adam Kadmon" is also at the heart of Jewish mystical thought. This Temple Theology is also a Theology of the Body of the Divine Son or Messiah.

The Church of the Circumcision's whole spirituality is based on this Temple or Tabernacle Theology understood as a Theology of the Body. The reclining sleeping man of the Temple represents the sleeping Jacob (Israel) and the prophetic dreams of the reclining sleeping Joseph. Leonora Leet writes that the Divine Son is the embodiment of Israel. However this mystery of the Temple revolves also around the mystery of the words from the Psalms of David "Kiss the Son". This alludes to Jacob "falling on the neck" or kissing of his son Joseph. Pope Francis' loves the image of the reclining sleeping St Joseph.

When the Patriarch Joseph had his dream of his father and mother as the sun and moon and stars which bowed down to him, who was Joseph? He was the earth- the yesod (foundation). The mystery of the Father kissing the Son represents Heaven and Earth uniting through the person of the Divine Son or Son of Man. It is a mystery of the Divine Will (Ratzon). It is also the mystery of Abraham and Isaac and the binding which also happened in the same place as Jacob's dream  of the staircase to Heaven according to Jewish tradition. This spiral staircase may also represent the spiral dna of Man. 

This priestly Tabernacle sanctity which was part of the mystery of the dwelling presence and Glory in the Temple was extended to the laity by the Pharisees. The best of Pharisee teaching was bringing of the kedushah (holiness/sanctity) of the temple to the homes and lives of the ordinary Jews. Due to Jesus' clash with the leaven (hametz) of the five hypocritical groups of Pharisee we often forget the two good groups of the moderate Essenes (mystics) and the Hillelites (practitioners of mercy and loving kindness). 

Thus the best of Catholic and Jewish spirituality is based on this focus on the presence and glory of God as central in the life of the believer and his family. When we focus more on the outward forms and rules and regulations instead of the inner light that leads us to communion and adoration (kissing the Son) then we are following the hypocrites not the true believers. The Song of Songs further conceals the deeper mysteries. "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth..." cries out the soul of the true believer who is represented or embodied by the mystical Bride who is Lady Shekhinah and Lady Wisdom.


When we do Eucharistic Adoration we are sitting on or embracing the knees of the Divine Son and kissing him. With the revival of the movement for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration in the Church in recent decades Heaven is starting to Kiss the Earth in order to lead us to the fulfilment of the Lord's Prayer that the Divine Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As fruit of this Temple or Tabernacle theology, expressed in our time, a new appreciation of the role of the Father and St Joseph will occur in which there will be a turning of the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children which will restore the family to its rightful place as a place in which the Divine Presence dwells. 

The Father will Kiss the Son and the Father will dance at the feast of his Son as the Father in the story of the prodigal son must have done. The Father races to greet his Son and to kiss him and embrace him. The Father sees each person as the image of his Son who he is desiring to kiss and embrace into the new and divine holiness of dwelling in his Divine Will as Son and not Servant only. This icon of the dancing Father is alive to day in the Hasidic Jewish tradition of the Rebbe or Tzaddik dancing. The Father is rushing right now to kiss and embrace you even with the smell of the pig sty still upon you. He longs for you to dance in his Will in the great feast of the Lamb who is the Lion of Judah.

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St Catald and the Great Monarch: A 7th Century Prophecy

May 7, 2017, 12:27 am
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 St Catald the Irish Archbishop of Taranto in Italy in the 7th century



I was reflecting on some of the Catholic prophecies on the coming of the Great Monarch. One I have read many times struck me anew. If Prince Harry is the future Great Monarch then this would mean the era of peace would not begin until after the 15 September 2024 when he turns 40. St Catald or Cataldus was an Irish monk of the 7th century who visited Jerusalem and became an Archbishop in Italy. He prophesied:


"The Great Monarch will be in war till he is 40 years of age; a King of the House of Lily, he will assemble great armies and expel tyrants from his empire. He will conquer England and other island empires. Greece he will invade and be made king thereof. Colchis, Cyprus, the Turks and barbarians he will subdue and have all men to worship the Crucified One. He will at length lay down his crown in Jerusalem."

Thus it could mean that the seven years of Tribulation would begin after Prince Harry turns 33 on 15 September 2017 (5777). The Jewish new year of 5778 begins on Rosh haShana the 20th of September 2017. The Third Antichrist (the Assyrian Beast like a Leopard but not the Final Antichrist) could begin the open phase of his rule in 2021. This year of 2017 (5777) is a prophetic Jubilee year and possibly the last year of "relative calm" for most of the Western World. 2018 may be a year of deep sorrows represented by the 101 tears of the Virgin at Akita. 

In the 7th century the House of the Lily referred to those women descended from Blanchfleur (also called Dindaine) and her Mamikonian Armenian husband Vahan the Wolf  who became known as Wehha King of the East Angles. In the time of St Catald Sexburga was the Regnant Queen of Wessex and the Queen Consort of Kent and her father was Anna King of the East Angles and her mother was the Lady Saewara through whom Sexburga inherited the Wessex throne. Others believe that the French Royal House is the House of Lily and that the original White Flower was the mother or grandmother of Charlemagne. Eventually the House of the Lily became associated with the French Capetian/ Bourbon kings. It is interesting that some believe that the Mamikonian family originated in Georgia in the area of ancient Colchis.


Prince Harry is also on his male line descended from the modern Kings of Greece so it is not impossible that the Greeks may accept him as a future King. He is also descended from the Lusignan Crusader Kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem.Time will tell us if Prince Harry is the prophesied Great Monarch. He has the right lineage but does he have the right heart?
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Jewish Bishops of Jerusalem and St Judas Cyriacus: A Hebrew Catholic Insight

May 7, 2017, 9:53 pm
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Icon of  St James the Just of Jerusalem looking more like a Gentile than a Jewish Tzaddik

Eusebius writing in the 4th century gives a list of 15 Jewish Christian or Hebrew Catholic Bishops of Jerusalem. It is claimed that the last of this list of Bishops in Judas a great grandson of St Jude and that the list ended in 135 with the defeat of Bar Kokhba. However some have commented that this list seems very long for such a short period. In fact this list that Eusebius uses may be the list of the Jewish Bishops of Jerusalem up until the time of Pope Sylvester I and Constantine when the Jewish Bishops broke with Rome.


"...The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchaeus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas. These are the bishops of Jerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision..."
The Cenacle in Jerusalem was to become the mother house or Messianic Synagogue of the early Jewish Church of the circumcision. This was the place called Zion from which the mystery of the Eucharist would radiate out to the four corners of the earth. At the time of Constantine the Jewish Church broke with the Pope and Rome after the visit of eight Jewish Christian Bishops (all belonging to the descendants of the Holy Family) to Pope Sylvester I around 321. For a number of years the mother Church on Mt Zion was not in unity with the Gentile Church in Jerusalem and St Cyril of Jerusalem was unable to preach from there in 348 (see Bargil Pixner "Church of the Apostles Found on Mt Zion"). 

 The eight Jewish Christian Desposyni Bishops or Exilarchs that met with Constantine and Pope Sylvester represented the eight leading Jewish Christian Sees ruled by the descendants of Jesus relatives of the Royal House of David. The names of the eight Desposyni Bishops are not their actual names but the name of the founder of their Bishop's See. In a sense these eight are the eight Jewish Christian Patriarchs of the Jewish Church of the Circumcision.

 

In the far West there were the three Sees of Tara, Avalon and Camelon. Tara was the Irish See and House of Nathan. Nathan was a grandson of St Joseph of Arimathea who took the Gospel from Britian to Ireland and was the Rosh Galuta Erani. Avalon was the Southern British See and House of Joseph. This Joseph was St Joseph of Arimathea a paternal relative of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosh Galuta or Golus of Britain (Britti). Camelon (Camelot) was the See and House of Phares. This Phares was a son of Nathan and greatgrandson of St Joseph of Arimathea who took the Gospel to Scotland and was the Rosh Galuta Scotti. 

There were five Desposyni Jewish Christian Sees in the East. Jerusalem was the Jewish See and House of Jacob/ James. This Jacob was St James the Just the cousin of Jesus. Antioch was Jewish See and House of Zachary. This Zachary was also the 4th Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem. Alexandria was the Jewish See and House of Matthias. This Matthias was also the 8th Bishop of Jerusalem. Kinyani in Iraq was the See and House of Yochanan/ John. This John was also the 7th Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem. Takte Sulieman in Persia was the See and House of Simeon. This Simeon was also the 2nd Bishop of Jerusalem and a younger brother of St James the Just.  This James and Simeon should not be confused with the Apostles St James the Less and St Simon Zelotes as has been done in the Western Church. While there were other Jewish Christian Bishops these eight Davidic sees were of special honour as having been founded and manned by the Desposyni Davidic Bishops descended from the Holy Family of Jesus' blood relatives.

Thus Jacob (James) who visited Pope Sylvester was most likely Judas of the list of Eusebius as the Successor of St James or Jacob the Just. This Judas is also known as St Judas Cyriacus and was a descendant of the Judas who was a great grandson of St Jude. He had been a Bishop to the Jewish Christian community in Ancona in Italy before being called to Jerusalem to succeed the Jewish Bishop Joseph of Jerusalem. He was associated with St Helena the mother of the Emperor Constantine in her search for the true Cross. He has been the substance of many legends. He was killed in a riot in Jerusalem during the reign of Julian the Apostate around 363. His body was preserved and given by the Empress Galla Placidia to Ancona and is still in the Cathedral of Ancona named for him until today. St Kyriacus the Anchorite was a descendant of St Judas Cyriacus. St Judas Cyriacus' grandson Alexander became the Bishop of Corinth and his son John who also became a priest was the father of St Kyriacus the Anchorite. 

Relics of the Body of St Judas Cyriacus of Jerusalem in the Ancona Cathedral

It would seem that the last Jewish Christian Bishop of Jerusalem St Porphyry stepped down in 394 and recognised the Gentile Bishop of Jerusalem John II. St Porphyry was from a Jewish Christian family of Thessalonica who came to Jerusalem to be the Jewish Bishop or Patriarch (Rosh) of the Order of Sion. He was afterwards appointed as Bishop of Gaza. It would seem that from the 5th century the distinct Jewish Church assimilated in the West with the Gentile Church and only some pockets maintained in secret their Jewish traditions especially among those families of Davidic lineage.

Jewish Bishops of Jerusalem of the Order of Sion
  1. James the Just (32- 62)
  2. Simeon I (62–107)
  3. Justus I (107–113)
  4. Zaccheus (113–121)
  5. Tobias (121–135)
  6. Benjamin I (135–152)
  7. John I (152–176)
  8. Matthias I (176–198)
  9. Philip (198–210)
  10. Senecas (210–226)
  11. Justus II (226–250)
  12. Levi (250–281)
  13. Ephraim (281–299)
  14. Joseph I (299–315)
  15. Judas Cyriacus (315–363)
  16.  Alexander (Aharon) (363-385)
  17. Porphyry (Peretz) (385-394)
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The Mystery of the Levirate Marriage; Spilling of Seed and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

June 10, 2017, 6:57 am
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Ruth and Boaz with Naomi and their son Obed who is the yibum son of Mahlon

The concept of a Levirate marriage hides a great mystery in Judaism. It is considered one of the deepest mysteries of the Jewish mystical tradition along with the mystery of the Red Heifer. In a sense these two mysteries are connected in that they refer to the mystery of reparation or rectification or atonement for sin. Rebbe Nachman revealed some of this mystery to his closest disciples but ordered it to be concealed from others due to them not having proper spiritual understanding so that they would distort such mysteries. Unfortunately this has occurred anyway and has been mixed with the avoda zara (foreign) teachings of reincarnation of Eastern religions by some Jews.

Rebbe Nachman calls his disciples (those who share in his charism, spirit or neshama) to understand the mystery of the Levirate marriage not in its outward literal sense but to go into the very deepest roots of its mystery and perceive its hidden light.  Rebbe Nachman also connects this mystery to his reparation of the nocturnal emission or spilling of seed in vain. The Sabbateans misunderstood this teaching in Kabbalah and sought to, on a literal level, through the use of sexual acts, to attain the spiritual dimension of this mystery which led to perversion. The Frankists and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov sought to remedy or repair for this perversion and return this mystery to its original pure level of light.

The Bible calls for a literal Levirate marriage when one's brother is married but dies without a son then his brother or another close relative marries the widow and the child born to them is considered legally to be the son of the deceased husband. On a literal level this protects widows from becoming destitute with no husband and no son. However there is a deeper meaning to this marriage and we see such Levirate marriages in the ancestry of the Messiah. 

The first mention is actually before the giving of the Torah and the law of Levirate marriage in the story of Judah, his sons and Tamar and this story also links this mystery to the spilling of seed in vain. King David and the Messiah will descend from this highly irregular union of Judah and Tamar. Their eldest son Phares (Peretz) is considered the first born son of Judah's first born son Er and takes precedence over the other sons of Judah. He receives the neshama or charism of Er as the first born son who will be the father or ancestor of the Kingly line of the Messiah. 

The next time we encounter the Levirate marriage is in the story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz in which we see that it applies not just to brothers but also to other male relatives. Ruth's first husband Mahlon is a cousin of Boaz. Mahlon is the first born heir of Elimelech (the husband of Naomi) who is most likely the eldest son of Salmon and Rachab. Boaz by marrying Ruth in a Levirate marriage attains the kingly birthright for his son Obed ahead of his more senior relatives. While this kingly birthright of the first born usually passes to the eldest son it can on occasion under divine direction go to the younger or youngest such as in the case of Jacob and Esau and Ephraim and Manasseh. Jesse received the kingly birthright but God through the prophet Samuel transferred the kingly birthright to Jesse's youngest son David. 

The next levirate or yibum marriage according to Jewish tradition was with Solomon's older brother Nathan whose widow Hephzibah had a yibum son with Solomon. The Zohar states that the Messiah will descend from Hephzibah the wife of Nathan the son of David.  It would seem that the kingly birthright blessing was divided at this time with the yibum son of Nathan called Mattata receiving the promise of  being the ancestor of the Messiah while Rehoboam received the earthly throne of David blessing. This blessing was reunited when Jeconiah's childless wife married the Nathanite heir and Shealtiel was the yibum son born of this union. This is why Shealtiel and his son Zerubbabel appear in both the genealogies of Luke (descent from the yibum son of Nathan) and Matthew (from Solomon's son King Rehoboam).

The levirate marriages are alluding to the virginal nuptial union in the Divine Will. Yeshua said that those who do the will of God are his mother, brother, sister etc. The Zohar and Talmud teach through the levirate marriage that at the spiritual root of this mystery one' s wife becomes one's mother and one's father becomes their son.Yeshua also alludes to this when he asked the Jewish people who was King David referring to when he called the Messiah who is to be his son Lord. How can his son be his Lord? In a levirate marriage the new husband allows his son to be reckoned as his brother's son. God the Father in the mystery of the incarnation allows his Son to be reckoned as the Son of Joseph. 

This is meant to be understood in a spiritual manner not as reincarnation. The mystery of the levirate however does allude to the mystery of the resurrection and especially the mystical/spiritual resurrection in the Divine Will. As one inherits certain traits of certain ancestors through biological dna so we receive spiritual traits or charisms we can call neshama (a level of the soul) or spiritual dna from our ancestors and other souls. St John the Baptist shared the neshama (charism/spirit) of Elijah the Prophet. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov received the neshama or charism of Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai as well as certain aspects of the neshama of Moses and Mashiach ben Yosef as well as the neshama of his great grandfather the Baal Shem Tov.

We can also receive the negative traits of our ancestors and others which we need to do reparation for in the Divine Will. Rebbe Nachman sought to do reparation for the sins of the Jewish Sabbateans in which he offered up himself to great suffering of soul and body to repair for such a great sin as lustful thoughts and actions called nocturnal emissions or spilling of the seed in vain. Unfortunately due to the veiled language many Jews had misunderstood this teaching and in the time of Rebbe Nachman the youth and others were burdened with guilt over innocent nocturnal emissions as well as masturbation. Like the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman taught that emissions of semen in one's sleep were not considered a sin just as a child wetting himself in the night is not a sin. Rebbe Nachman as a true chasid had a heart of chesed (mercy/loving kindness) and he wanted to help the young men who believed they had committed an almost unforgivable sin by masturbating, due to a false understanding of what spilling the seed in vain meant. He proposed a merciful remedy in which one would wash and recite ten psalms which would make reparation for any sinfulness involved in masturbation or lustful thoughts. The linking of masturbation with the more serious sins against life was also due to a faulty understanding of biology of the past among Jews that saw the semen or seed of the man as actual embryos who were being killed.

The actual sin of spilling of seed in vain in fact refers to one willfully trying to negate God's command to be fruitful and multiply by treating another human being as an object of lust as did Er who didn't want Tamar to lose her figure and Onan because through selfishness he didn't want to give his brother an heir. It is the refusal to obey God's command to generate and nurture life that makes this such as serious sin equal to bloodshed. It is the choosing of the way of death rather than the way of life. This can be symbolised by Cain and Abel- those who choose the way of death received the neshama of Cain and those who choose the way of life receive the neshama of Abel (the voice of the blood of Abel) which desires to make reparation for the sinful acts of his brother Cain whose acts can then be restored to wholeness in the divine Will. Of course it is only by giving to all souls and all acts the blood of Yeshua the Messiah that any reparation is possible.

On a more mystical level the spilling of seed in vain refers to those human acts done in the selfish human will that in a sense become the offspring or seed of evil (the demonic). The levirate marriage is entered into out of pure love for the welfare of the woman and for the memory of one's brother or close relative thus being closer to the idea of a Josephite marriage. The offspring or seed of the mystical levirate marriage or virginal spousal unions are acts done or redone in Divine Will which repair and rectifies the fallen seed. It is believed by many Breslovers that Rebbe Nachman entered into a second marriage that was a "Josephite" marriage after the death of his first wife.

Our Lady who is the mystical Red Heifer and the Mystical Levirate Bride takes on the sins of all and repairs the damage done through them through the blood of her Son the Messiah. As the Woman of Israel she is the embodiment of the neshamot of all the Matriarchs of Israel like Tamar, Ruth, Hephzibah the wife of Nathan etc. Each of the Matriarchs of Israel also receive the neshama of Our Lady who is their sister in the order of Creation, their daughter in the order of history and their mother in the order of the Divine Fiat. In a similar manner St Joseph and Yeshua are the brothers in the order of creation, sons in the order of history and fathers in the order of the Divine Fiat to the Patriarchs of Israel. 

St Joseph is also both the virginal father and the son of the Messiah Yeshua. In a sense Yeshua in Joseph and Joseph in Yeshua was the model on which God gazed when he created Adam and he gazed at the model or icon of Our Lady in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit in Our Lady Miriam in the creation of Eve. Thus St Joseph and Our Lady Miriam were the father and mother of Adam and Eve in the order of grace as well as biological son and daughter of Adam and Eve.

The power of the praying of the ten Psalms is the power of praise  in ten different ways. It is the praise and focusing on the Lord that brings true reparation and healing to those souls wounded by their sins. Rebbe Nachman wants to get his young men and all people away from focusing on their sins and back on God who is all merciful and ready to forgive so that they can become Tzadiks and repair for others and for those others sins. There is great power for reparation and healing in joyful heart-felt praise. If we can chant or sing them while dancing in child-like playfulness and joy- then that is even better. This is true Tikkun Olam (repair of the world).

Reincarnation and Reb Abraham Chazan: A Hebrew Catholic Understanding

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The Woman Clothed with the Sun, September 23 2017 and the Warning and Miracle of Garabandal in 2018

June 21, 2017, 11:48 pm
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8:30 pm Jerusalem time September 23, 2017.

2018 is the 101st anniversary year since Our Lady appeared at Fatima. On October 13 1917 Our Lady's miracle of the Sun occurred. Could this special alignment of the heavens on 23 September 2017, in possible fulfilment of Revelations 12, be when the Child (who is often interpreted to mean a special Pope in old Catholic commentaries) is given as a special Pope through the merits of Our Lady's sufferings of the birth pangs at the foot of the Cross? The sign of the Dragon occurs on December 13 2017 (Hanukah) which may be the start of a major persecution of the Church. If we count 1260 days from December 13, 2017 we get to 26 May 2021 for the end of this period of persecution.
 
The year 2017-18 (Jewish year of 5778) may turn out to be interesting year if these speculations happen with a possible economic collapse in August 2017 (or February 2018 or August 2018), outbreak of civil wars or disturbances in Western Europe in July 2017, and the possible death of the two Popes with the first coming of the comet on September 16 2017 and the election of a new Pope on September 23 followed by this new Pope (Pius XIII) fleeing Rome on December 13 and the persecution of the true Catholics and the rise of a heterodox Church in Rome and the return of communist governments to Europe. Then possibly the Warning or comet possibly on March 22 2018 followed by the Miracle on April 12 2018 (the 13th day of Omer). While of course all of these events will happen someday it may not be this or next year and not according to this sequence or timetable.
 
It is also not clear whether the warning and miracle are in the same year or different calendar years. Apparently a friend of Marie Loli said that the Warning would be in an even year and others say that Conchita said that the Miracle would be in an odd year. Others believe they will both occur in the same calendar year. The Pope after Pius XIII will not be elected until January 2021 and will either be a French Pope or a Frankist (Jewish) Pope or a Pope called Francis II or he could be all three or just two. Alternatively he could be a French Jewish Pope called Leo XIV. He will ally with the future Great Monarch Henry.



Daniel Matson writes:
"...The sign of Revelation 12 has many details that are common, but uncommon when all put together. The first part of the sign is the woman clothed with the sun. This happens every year, but it narrows the time down to one month around the autumnal equinox. That woman is represented by Virgo--the virgin. She is clothed by the sun from mid-September to early October. September 23, 2017 meets these requirements.
 
The next requirement is that the moon must be under the feet of Virgo. With the sun in Virgo and her feet to the east, the moon must be a few days past new moon. Since the Hebrew Calendar is lunar and the Feast of Trumpets (September 21, 2017) is on the new moon, September 23-25 places the moon in the correct position. This happens every year on the Hebrew Calendar as long as the new moon did not occur too early or too late in relation to the equinox, which would put the sun too high or low in Virgo. Here it is perfect. The requirement of the moon and sun narrows it down to a few days of the year. The rest of the parts of the sign must then coincide with this time if we are able to observe this sign.

On September 23, 2017 there are four planets in the vicinity that complete the sign and its ultimate uniqueness. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter play their parts. Above the head of Virgo is the constellation Leo. In Leo at this time there will be Mars, Venus, and Mercury. With Leo being a constellation of nine principle stars, the three wandering stars make it twelve at this time. Thus the garland of twelve stars is upon the woman. For three planets to be in Leo at this time with all of the other preconditions makes this rare. Combined with the final piece of the picture below is what makes this sign difficult of not nearly impossible to replicate anywhere close to the time in which we live. How rare? A search 150 years before and 150 years after September 23, 2017 produced no results..."
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A Different Worldview: Poking My Tongue Out at Conformist Evolutionists

July 18, 2017, 8:42 pm
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As a sanguine choleric I am interested in the bigger picture of the History and over the years I have developed a rather large and wide ranging insight into world history that differs from that accepted by modern academia. For me the Messiah Yeshua and his people the Jews or Israelites are at the centre of History but this is not an insular history but a world encompassing history. I am also sick of people who are believers in evolution being aghast that anyone but an Appalachian hill billy could question the evolutionary mythology. Get over it! There are plenty of well educated people who question this theory even if they don't do it publicly for fear of losing their jobs and positions. There is such elitism and pride in modern academia- maybe the Appalachian hill billies are right anyway.
 


History is not always what one has been taught to believe has happened in the past. Emmanuel Velikovsky demonstrated this point convincingly in his numerous works. Australia’s history before British colonisation is a case in point. Overcoming the blindness engendered by the scientific errors of uniformitarian and Darwinian evolution opens up a whole new way of looking at the past. The theories of uniformitarianism and Darwinian evolution masquerades as science, they are in reality science fantasies. Using the faculty dating methodologies based on evolutionary assumptions, that see change as very slow and gradual, causes problems of immense proportions. This has led to an overly critical approach to many literary and historical sources. Emmanuel Velikovsky’s writings have led to a revival in some quarters of the older form of understanding geology –that of Catastrophism.
 
Thus I do not accept the subjective and circular dating methodologies used by modernist scientists and historians. I have thus had to set out on a herculean task of dating archeological discoveries and genetic evidence using a different paradigm which is perceived through the idea that mankind and his history is no more than about 6,000 years and a population bottleneck occurred about 4,500 years ago with the Deluges of both Earth and Mars and the restarting of civilisation from almost scratch.
 
I was amazed to discover that the last great Catastrophe occurred about 500 years ago around 1530 and that the world and its populations were very different especially in the southern hemisphere before 1530. Also around 1606 certain Catastrophic geological events occurred in some portions of the earth. The evidence is there hidden in our histories and I discovered a whole new world when reading Marco Polo, Benjamin of Tudela, Friar Odoric, Sir John de Mandeville and others. I found past historians proved to be much more accurate than they had previously been credited by our modernist scholars.
 
I am still learning and discovering evidence hidden in plain sight about the true history of man and of the Israelites. It is an exciting journey and many are unable or unwilling to look at other possibilities. Some of the conclusions I have arrived at are indeed hard to believe unless one looks at the overall view which then fits together like a jigsaw. A new Catholic generation of scholars and scientists are needed that are ready to challenge the modernist academia of our times and look at history through the eyes of faith in the Messiah and the infallible nature of Scripture. Instead of doubting Scripture first, give the doubt to historical or scientific stories that differ from Scripture. It is not the "facts" or evidence that is the problem but the evolutionary and atheistic interpretations or stories that one creates from the evidence that has led moderns astray in their perception of the world and its history. Unfortunately we have had Catholics in recent decades bending over backwards to fit in and be accepted by modern academia rather than forging their own paths. Some of the most intolerant of evolutionists are Catholics. Believe in Darwinian evolution if you want but stop trying to force your viewpoint on others as the Catholic one. The Church actually leaves the individual Catholic to decide on what view they take on science and evolution within certain parameters outlined in Humani Generis. 

A new day will dawn when our present civilisation finally crashes and burns from its own decadence and rot from within and after a period of tribulation and chastisement a new way of thinking will occur and the sciences and the arts as well as theology and philosophy will reach a new and fresh summit that draws on the best and true of the past generations purified from the modernist errors of perception. So I gleefully poke my tongue out and bare my buttocks like a monkey at all those conformist evolutionists that can't stand anyone having a different worldview to them!
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Location of the Jewish Temple and the Via Dolorosa: A Hebrew Catholic Opinion

July 21, 2017, 12:49 am
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Location of the Temple according to the 5th theory

Today there are five major theories circulating about the location of the Jewish Temple. The first theory, which was also believed by some Jewish and Christian authorities of the past, is that the Temple and the Holy of Holies was located where the present Muslim mosque of the Dome of The Rock stands. The second theory, which also had the support of some Jewish and Christian authorities of the past, is that the Temple and the Holy of Holies were in the area of the Al Kas fountain between the Dome of the  Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque. At this location the Al Kas fountain could be today on the spot of the Holy of Holies or the Bronze Sea (or Laver) or the Altar of Sacrifice.

The Temple Mount today showing the Dome of the Rock an the Al Aqsa Mosque. The red numbers represent the location of the Jewish Temple according to the five theories.

The third theory is that the Temple and the Holy of Holies was to the north of the Dome of the Rock where the Dome of Spirits is today. The fourth theory is that the Temple and Holy Holies were not on the Temple Mount but to the south over the Gihon Spring. This forth theory believes that the whole Temple Mount was the Antonia Fortress which they believed was a city that housed a legion of 6,000 Roman soldiers. The fifth theory is that the Temple was where the Al Aqsa mosque is today and that the Temple platform extended further south than the present Temple Mount. This theory is proposed by Norma Robertson.


 The location of the Temple and the Antonia Fortress according to the 1st theory

Location of the Temple with the Altar in the area of the Al Kas fountain according to the 2nd theory

Location of the Temple  in Red with the Holy of Holies over the Al Kas fountain according to the 2nd theory

After examining the evidence of all five theories I believe the second one to be the correct one but I also think the fifth theory has alot going for it especially in regards to the aqueduct and water sources which is also a strength for the 2nd theory. According to the Book of Acts the Antonia Fortress was a barracks where St Paul preached not the city complex that the fourth theory proposes. In fact it was a barracks for 600 Roman soldiers not 6,000. We know that the original Temple had been a threshing floor which would also make theory four incorrect as it would not be built over the Gihon Spring as it would pollute the water source. Theory one is also wrong as threshing floors are built in valleys not on hilltops.


 The Location of the Temple according to the 4th theory

The fortress Antonia was also south of the moat so the present so-called Antonia Fortress at the school at beginning of the traditional Via Dolorossa could not have been the location of the Roman Antonia Fortress. Theory three would seem to be impossible as it borders right on the moat and leaves no room for the Antonia Fortress. Between the Western Wall (Kotel) and the Temple was a beautiful Rose Garden which would best fit the area of trees today seen near the Al Kas fountain area.

Location of the Temple according to the 2nd theory

Location of the Temple according to the 3rd theory

The Dome of the Rock  and the Al Aqsa Mosque are built on the foundations of the Roman Temple to Jupiter build by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century very similar to the Temple of Jupiter in Lebanon. It is believed that the statue of Hadrian on a horse once stood where the Al Kas Fountain is today (or nearby) which was believed to be the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Temple (Abomination of Desolation?). Is this the source of the legend of Mohammed ascending to Heaven on his horse from the Temple Mount? For Jews and Judeo-Christians it invoked the image of the false Messiah of Dan who was visualized as a rider on a horse with a serpent at his heels (Genesis 49:17).

The location of the Temple according to the fifth theory

The original Via Dolorosa started at the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus was taken across the Kedron Valley to the south side of the Temple to the House of Annas, then the House of Caiaphas, then to Pilate's residence at the Antonia Fortress, then to Herod's residence. These places are all located in the west (except the Antonia Fortress) in the area known as the Upper City. They are located in today's Jewish and Armenian Quarters. It also possible that Pilate was resident in Herod the Great's Palace and that Herod was resident in the Hasmonean Palace (near Shonei Halakhot and haSheshelet streets) which is about half way from Herod's Palace and the Antonia Fortress (Dome of the Rock location). In this case the soldiers would have taken Jesus away to the Antonia fortress for his flagellation and after Pilate's judgment they returned there with Jesus to collect his Cross. If the Gabbatha was in the Armenian quarter Parking lot area then that was a 17 -18 minute walk to the Dome of the Rock location of the Antonia Fortress.





From Herod then Jesus was taken back to Pilate at the Antonia Fortress (Dome of the Rock). This is possibly the real location of the First Station of the Cross and Jesus was led out of the western gate of the Antonia Fortress compound heading up a street that parallels today's Baruq Street (but probably 20 feet down below the present street) and the ancient Western Wall. Some believe that the gate here is the Iron Gate near the Little Kotel (possibly the real second station of the Cross). This street heads towards the north-west until the 4th station that is under the Church of the Spasm. From there it joined a street heading back towards the south-east before turning up a street heading west for the Ephraim Gate on the Wall of Second Temple Jerusalem and then outside the city to Golgotha. Thus the traditional Stations are roughly correct from the 4th station onwards but 20 feet under the ground.


A rough outline of the original Via Dolorosa on a modern map


Locations according to the 2nd theory in black letters and the different theories for the location of the Temple in red numbers

Rough outline of the Temple location according to the 2nd theory with the Bronze Sea or Laver at the spot of the Al Kas fountain

Until further archeological digs are allowed on the Temple Mount then the question is open about where the actual Temple and the Holy of Holies stood. If the second theory is correct then the Kotel (Western or Wailing Wall) is very close to the Holy of Holies and would explain the intense holiness and presence one feels when resting one's head on its stones. 


 Alternative 6th theory of the location of the Temple on Mt Zion

There is also another sixth possible location of the Temple and Antonia Fortress which would need more research. The Temple Mount may have been Herod the Great's Palace and the residence of Pilate. The Antonia Fortress may have been in the present Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Temple to its South on the area of Mt Zion and the valley between it and the eastern Hill may have been the original Kedron Valley and the eastern Hill the Mt of Olives. The Cenacle may have been in the area that was once part of Solomon's Palace. The Temple and the city of Jerusalem were said to be totally raised except for Herod's Palace which could be why so-much is still standing in the area of the Temple Mount.

According to the visions of  Blessed Anne Catharine Emmerich both Annas and Caiaphas's houses were on Mt Zion 300 paces apart (she often very incorrect at judging distances). It would seem that the site known as Annas' House today may have been in fact the House of Caiaphas and the so-called House of Caiaphas in the Armenian quarter the House of Annas. In the time of Jesus a diagonal road ran between the House of Caiaphas and the House of Annas. She speaks of the area called Ophel (before one reaches Mt Zion in the west) being on a hill south of the Temple and surrounded by their own walls. She also places the palace and tribunal of Pilate on the north-west side of the Temple Mount and north of the moat. Opposite or adjoining Pilate's residence was the great forum or market place to the north of Pilate's residence but separated from the forum by a courtyard. This forum would seem to be where the school is that many claim was the location of the Antonia fortress. There was a Guard house with an open court which under it was a small prison. On the forum in front of the guardhouse was the Gabbatha. 

Emmerich clearly states that the Antonia Fortress was built on the projecting rock (ie the Dome of the Rock) which gives support for the 2nd theory as well as the 5th theory. She also states that King Herod's residence was not far from Pilate's residence and the forum in what she calls the new city in the north. If Blessed Emmerich's location of the Forum where Jesus was scourged and trialed by Pilate was near the Omariya School then the traditional 1st station of the Cross is roughly correct too. The 2nd Station would probably be south of the present traditional 2nd station near the present Baruq St.

 However I think at this stage of research that the 2nd theory is probably the correct one in regards to the Temple and the Antonia Fortress. There is of course much traditional support that in favour of the Dome of the Rock location of the 1st theory and is believed by many Jews and Christians today. Until further archeological discovery or Divine Revelation should definitively prove the point we all need to keep an open mind to all theories and the possibility that our choice of theory could be incorrect. 
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Mixed or Mutiple Identity: A Hebrew Catholic Reflection

July 27, 2017, 11:47 pm
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 Miriam Margolyes

I was watching an old panel discussion on Q and A in which Miriam Margolyes the British Jewish actress was promoting a return to Dickens and Shakespeare to Australian schools. I don't normally agree with Miriam as she is an extremely left-wing, anti-Israel, Lesbian activist but on this point I certainly agreed with her and the Australians Germaine Greer and Barry Humphreys who were also supporting this.  As an English and History teacher and of Anglo-Jewish and Anglo-Gaelic ancestry I certainly think Australian school children should learn the great classics of English literature and British history which have formed our culture.

This caused me to reflect on multiple or mixed identities. I primarily saw myself as a traditional Anglo-Australian with deep roots in Australian history and culture.  However unlike some other Australians I saw no conflict with also feeling a great attachment to British culture and history and feeling a deep connection to the cultures of my English, Irish and Scottish ancestors. However through my Anglo-Jewish ancestry I felt also a very deep connection to not only Anglo-Jewry and its culture and way of life but through that to all Jewish cultures and to a great love of Israel and the Israelis. I am like a modern day Australian version of Daniel Deronda. 



As I relate to Dickens and Shakespeare and the other greats of English literature I feel an attachment to Arthurian literature as I do to Biblical and Jewish literature. I have a great love and devotion to the British Royal Family and the Queen but I also have a similar feeling towards the Czars of Russia and Russian culture and literature. I also have some kind of attraction to all things Sefardi and through my Spanish Jewish ancestry to all things Spanish. While I love Norse, Greek and Roman mythology I do not feel such a connection with their modern versions in Scandinavia, Greece and Italy. Why? Why does a Russian Orthodox service touch my heart in a way the Greek Orthodox service doesn't? Is it in our genes these tendencies or is it environment? Or a mixture?


 Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

All I know is that I have these multiple identities which seem to work for me just as such multiple identities work for others.  At the age of 24 I became a Catholic and in a sense a whole new identity was brought into formation within me. I can see elements of my spiritual identity as being drawn from Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Russian Orthodox and Evangelical and Charismatic sources. Am I mixed up and confused? Probably but I am now so used to it that I have integrated it all which makes up the person I am today. Probably more confusing to others than myself. 


 Banjo Paterson

I can enjoy reading the Zohar or Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in the morning and then reading the poetry of Lord Byron or Banjo Paterson in the afternoon and then the Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross in the evening. Is this being all things to all men as advocated by St Paul? Paul or Rabbi Shaul certainly had some mixed identity as a devout Pharisee Jew, a Christian apostle and a Roman citizen who was obviously well educated in Jewish, Roman and Greek culture and literature. Even those who identify as Hebrew Catholics or Catholic Jews have our own unique mix as background and foreground identities. Will this lead to multiple personalities like in the "Threes faces of Eve" or the "United States of Tara"? I hope not!
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Lying, Bedding and Homosexual Acts: A Hebrew Catholic Insight

August 24, 2017, 12:48 am
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Most of us have heard the verses in Leviticus "A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman" (Lev.20:13 and Lev 18:22) and its application to homosexual acts. However there has been some controversy about this interpretation. I decided to read it in the Hebrew and see what it was saying on the peshat level. 

וְאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁכַּ֤ב אֶת־זָכָר֙ מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֔ה תֹּועֵבָ֥ה עָשׂ֖וּ שְׁנֵיהֶ֑ם מֹ֥ות יוּמָ֖תוּ דְּמֵיהֶ֥ם בָּֽם׃
(v'ísh asher yishkav et-zachar mishkeve ishah toevah asu sh'nehem mot yumatu d'meyhem bam.) "And a husband, who lays (has sexual intercourse) with a male bedding his wife, having committed a depraved act, both of them die, their blood (guilt) is on themselves." There are a number of ways of understanding this verse. It seems to be saying that a husband who has anal sex with a male who is sexually penetrating his wife (a three-way sexual act) is committing a depraved act. The term mishkeve ishah (bedding wife) is a euphemism for sexually penetrating a woman that is another man's wife. This word is also used in Genesis 49:4 when Reuben takes his father's wife and sexually penetrates her. This bedding (mishkeve) is used for a sexual act done from lust rather than an act of love. 

Some scholars have drawn our attention to the practice of male temple prostitution to which this section of the Torah seems to be referring. Some believe that et-zachar refers to a male prostitute hired by the husband rather than just any male. It would seem the "both" who receive the death penalty are the husband and the male prostitute, but it is possible it refers to the husband and his wife but less likely. In that day and culture the woman was probably given little say in what her husband demanded. In this case the three-way sexual act is done as part of a ritual of idol worship which makes the act even more an abomination for God's people. This act also humiliates and shames the wife and the Torah seeks to give her some protection against the whims of her husband.

Later Judaism interprets these death penalties as spiritual in much the same way as Catholics refer to mortal sins that cut the soul off from grace (death to the soul rather than the body). As this sin is one that carried a blood guilt the only means of forgiveness is through deep repentance (teshuvah) and tears and some form of reparation (tikkun). King David had blood guilt due to his sins in the story of Bathsheba and Uriah and he repented and wept and then his reparation (tikkun) was the death of his baby son. In a sense the innocent baby son paid the price for David's reconciliation with God. This story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah when read in Hebrew and in the light of Jewish tradition also alludes to the homosexual inclinations of Uriah.

Thus these passages in Leviticus are saying something about the sanctity of the marriage bed and depraved acts of lust that manifests in a form of a homosexual act that corrupts the nuptial acts of love. Both Jewish and Christian tradition has extended the meaning of this to include all depraved acts based on lust which includes the anal sexual act between two men or even between heterosexual spouses. It is the acts that are an abomination or depraved not the persons who engage in them. Even less so is it saying anything negative about those who are primarily psychologically same sex attracted for reasons the Catholic Church itself doesn't fully understand (as stated in the Catechism). 

It is sometimes difficult when we are trying to support traditional marriage and to protect the right of children to have a mother and father not to demonise all homosexuals rather than opposing the ideas of those who set themselves up as activists. Like us all, people who are same sex attracted and tempted are broken and hurting and in need of love, compassion and healing. Some times we seem to forget loving the sinner while we battle the sins. We may refer to "gay" people as disgusting and an abomination rather than the lustful depraved acts. We conveniently forget that most of us are guilty of committing such depraved acts of lust even if it is only in thought. However when a nation starts to promote depraved acts as morally good the whole nation becomes subject to divine chastisement in order to bring it to repentance and then to experience God's mercy and forgiveness. Do we want to be like Nineveh in the time of Jonah or like Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of Abraham and Lot?





 
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Ellen Looney Downey: Irish Frankist Matriarch

August 26, 2017, 11:54 pm
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 The Grave of Ellen Ahearn (nee Looney) 1833-1919 in Victoria, Australia.

In the 1760's a number of Frankist families moved from Poland and Germany to Ireland. Some of these families moved to the areas of the counties of Waterford and Cork in southern Ireland where there had been a crypto-Jewish community since the 16th century. These families took Irish surnames and outwardly observed the customs of the other Irish Catholics but in the home and in their own Frankist meeting they observed their own Jewish Frankist customs. They intermarried mainly with only those of other Frankist or Crypto-Jewish families. These families maintain their Jewish identity in secret for a few generations before being totally assimilated into the surrounding culture.

One of the descendants of these families was Ellen Looney who was born in 1833 in County Waterford in Ireland. Her father John Looney on his paternal line came from one of the older Sefardi crypto-Jewish families that had been in Ireland since the 16th century. The Looney family were descended from Juan da Luna of Spain and Portugal. John Looney had been born in Waterford in 1798 where his parents Gerard Looney and Catherine Murray had moved from Youghal in Cork. The Murray family were also known as the Murzynski family before they arrived in Ireland in the 1760's with the other Frankist families. 

Ellen Looney's mother was known as Hanora or Hannah O'Connor and her Jewish name was Chana Kinnor. Chana's parents were Frankists who settled near Cork and Hanora was born in Cobh near Cork around 1811. She later lived in Fermoy with her family. Her father David Kinnor (O'Connor) had been born in the Rhineland in Germany. Kinnor means Harp in Hebrew and the Kinnor family claimed to be descended from King David. David's grandfather David Menke Kinnor was born in Poland in 1730 and moved to Germany where he was also known as David Harf. Her mother Mary Maher (Miriam Mayer) was born in Ireland in 1787 of a Frankist family descended from Jacob Frank the Rebbe or Tzaddik of the Frankists. Two of Hanora's brothers Michael and James became Catholic Bishops in America. 

When Ellen Looney's parents moved to England to escape the Potato Famine, Ellen decided to stay behind in Cappoquin, Waterford. However within a short time she had lost her employment and was forced to enter the workhouse in Dungarvan in Waterford County. She in 1849 as part of a group of workhouse orphan girls went to Australia and worked initially for a family in Geelong in Victoria. In 1850 at Port Fairy in Victoria she married Robert Downey who was a former convict who also came from one of the Waterford crypto-Jewish Frankist families. His father was Denis Downey (aka Dionzy Dawosky). Robert had been sent to Australia in 1837 and received his ticket of leave in 1846. He had been convicted on 16 July 1836 at Waterford.

Ellen and Robert Downey had a large family and left alot of descendants in Australia. Robert in 1870 was tragically killed when he fell off his dray and was run over by his own cart. Ellen would remarry to another one of the crypto-Jews descended from the Ahearn family of Youghal. She had a daughter Kitty (Catherine) from this second marriage. Ellen would live until 1919 until she was about 86. On her tombstone it says she was 90, but death ages on tombstones are often incorrect.

Ellen's daughter Ellen Downey from her first marriage seems to have married another Australian-born Irishman of cryptp-Jewish ancestry John Cavanagh. The surname Cavanagh coming from the Hebrew word Kevanah (meaning devotion or intensity in prayer). However by this time the Jewish customs of the family would probably have been minimal and they were totally assimilated into Irish Catholicism of their neighbours by the 20th century. The Potato famines beginning in 1845 in Ireland no doubt played a large role in the disruption of the networks of crypto-Jewish and Frankist families.
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Hebrew Catholic or Hebrew Speaking Kehilla? The St James Vicariate

September 3, 2017, 12:17 am
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In my blog article of Five Kinds of Hebrew Catholics I wrote about the Hebrew-speaking Catholics who seek to be culturally Israelis who are Catholic in religion. This group in Israel is the present St James Vicariate. In recent years they have been growing due to a number of Gentile families from the third world whose children speak Hebrew so feel more comfortable in the Israeli-style Hebrew speaking Kehillot of the St James Vicariate in Israel.

However the original Association of St James founded in the 1950's saw itself in a different light and many older members are saddened by the new direction of the St James Vicariate since the death of the first modern-day Hebrew Catholic Bishop in Jerusalem of a Hebrew-speaking community. The movement has now changed from being a sacred place for Hebrew Catholics of their own in the Church, to a Hebrew-speaking community in Israeli society which includes some Jewish or Hebrew Catholics. Some Hebrew Catholics are still involved with it but they will soon be outnumbered by the Gentiles. Basically the new direction is moving away from the Jewish identity of the Kehillot and its development of a Jewish-Christian spirituality for Hebrew Catholics or Jewish believers in Yeshua in the Church. Is this just assimilation in another form?

It is not that its present direction is not a good one and is certainly needed for those Catholics who are not Jews growing up in Israel. However the original vision that inspired its founders is rapidly being lost. Maybe it is time for someone in Israel to reform the original St James Association for the development of the Jewish Church possibly based on the Ordinariate model in which Hebrew Catholics all over the world could be members if they wished.  

In the past English-speaking Hebrew Catholics who tend to be more conservative and orthodox than the more liberal French influenced Hebrew -speaking Catholics have had troubles communicating. Father David Neuhaus did a wonderful job in trying to reach out to all while working within the parameters of the new direction of the St James Vicariate. That he himself was Jewish and English -speaking helped and his involvement in discussion with other Jewish believers in Yeshua in the Churches and Messianic Jews was also important and seemed to maintain a bit of the older spirit of the original association of St James. Now he is no-longer leader and with the leadership given to a Gentile priest will even these connections fade?

Among many Jewish believers in Yeshua in Israel there seems to be less devotion to traditional Jewish ways centred on Torah and Mitzvot than in the diaspora. Diaspora Hebrew Christians have become more and more observant as they realise this is what preserves Jewish identity. However in Israel this is seen as less important as Israeli identification is seen as that which preserves their identity. However this makes them more a part of secular Israeli culture and more distant from Orthodox Jewish religious culture.

Many Jews in the Church and their Gentile supporters have longed for a return of the Jewish Church of the Circumcision as the mother form of the Church and the need to create a Jewish space in the Church. Now it would seem one of those spaces in the making is becoming regentilised step by step until it is just another branch of the Gentile Church that happens to have the Latin liturgy in the Hebrew language. This would seem to rather suit the Arab dominated Latin Rite of the Church in the Holy Land and the Franciscans whose clergy are mostly negative towards Jews and the state of Israel. 

In the recent Vicariate clip in celebrating of the 60th anniversary of the St James Vicariate we see the sadness of one who fought for the original vision of the Association of St James, Cecile Pilverdier, at this new direction. After the excitement of the first Jewish Bishop in Jerusalem since the early Church with his death many dreams were dashed as the Kehillot of St James went in a different direction. But there is always hope and new wine that needs new wineskins. The Holy Spirit has not finished yet and in God's time we will see that Jewish space created in the Church in preparation of the ingrafting in Romans 11. Maybe it will only be when a more ecumenical working together with other Jews in the different churches and the Messianic Jewish movements, as has begun in the Helsinki Consultations, that a way forward will be found.

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We are the Night's Watch: A Hebrew Catholic Reflection

September 11, 2017, 6:13 am
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"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."
―The Night's Watch oath
This oath of a military order in the "Game of Thrones" really sums up what the charism of the Little Eucharistic Brothers of  Divine Will is about but on a spiritual level. Yeshua said on his darkest Night in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Would you not watch one hour with me?". Those of us who have given up all do it to serve God and our fellow brothers and sisters in the battle against the Night or Darkness. The Winter is indeed coming with the living dead or white walkers coming in it's train. We mount the wall everytime we enter the chapel to do Eucharistic Adoration. The Zohar states: "The hour of prayer is the hour of battle". Our chapel is the Watch tower or look out Tower and we stand in the gap for others.

We pray for the return of the true King like John Snow in Game of Thrones or Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings. This ultimately of course refers to the return of King Yeshua but on the earthly level we await and pray for the rise of the Great Catholic King and the Great French Pope ( a Gandalf -like figure). We pray for the light of God's Divine Will to spread and explode in the world in order to bring in the Kingdom of Holiness on earth as it is in Heaven. All of us secretly long for a Great warrior Queen to fight on our behalf and free us who we can serve like Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones or Galadriel the Elven Queen in Lord of the Rings who are types for Our Lady our Great Jewish Warrior Queen who fights our spiritual battles. There is something in the soul of the Anglo-Gaelic English-speaking peoples that revere their Queens even more than their Kings.
In the Game of Thorns we have recently learnt that John Snow who is considered as a Bastard is in fact really the legitimate son of the Targaryen Dynasty and the true King who should be sitting on the Iron Throne. Thus the Great Monarch will also be revealed as a true heir to the French Throne and King Louis XVII even though some will question his legitimacy as we have seen with those who question whether Prince Harry is the son of Prince Charles. However time will soon tell us who these prophetic figures will be and we in the meantime pray for the victory of the Light of the Messiah to triumph over the Darkness that is descending on the world. We await the Messiah's coming as the Thief and Bridegroom in the Night who is embodied on earth in the persons of the Davidic Heir (Monarch) and the Shepherd of the Flock (Pope). Firstly as Christians (Notzrim) and secondly as Catholics and thirdly as consecrated monacelli (little monks or brothers) we are indeed the Night's Watch!



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The Great French Pope and Prophetic Interpretation: A Hebrew Catholic Opinion

September 17, 2017, 1:03 am
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Prophecy is not always as clear cut as we think it is and its interpretation is difficult until after the events have occurred. For example there are many Catholic prophecies by seers and saints over the centuries of the rise of a Great French Pope and a Great Monarch. What does the word translated as French in English really refer to?

The original prophecies spoke of a Frankish or Frank Pope. There are a number of ways one could interpret this word. Frankish can refer to the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne which includes modern France, Germany and Italy and a number of other places in Western Europe. The prophecy could mean this Angelic Pope comes from one of the countries of Western Europe.

In the time of the Crusades the Muslims referred to all Western Christians of Europe as Franks and so this Pope could be a European Pope. Some groups of Jews were also referred to as Franks. It came to be a name for Jews of European origin living in the Ottoman Empire especially in Turkey. The term Frankist refers to those Jews who became Catholics under the leadership of Jacob Frank. Thus the term could mean the future Pope is to be a Jew or a Catholic of Jewish ancestry.

The name Francis also means Frank or Frenchman so the prophecies may refer to a Pope called Francis. Our present Pope is the first Pope to ever be called Francis. However the prophecy may not refer to our present Pope but to a future Pope called Francis. Now that we have our first Pope called Francis it is very likely a future Pope will also take that name in the near future. Another interpretation is the future Pope may have been a Franciscan.

Thus this Great Frank or French Pope could come from any of these origins. It is also possible that he could fulfill all these meanings if he is a Western European French born Catholic of Jewish  ancestry who takes the name Francis. Time will only make this clearer. I personally think this Great Pope will not arise until after we have a Pope probably called Pius XIII who goes into exile and hiding. However prophecies are tricky and they will probably be fulfilled in ways that surprise us all.



The media is reporting that one man is interpreting the unique stellar alignment on 23 September 2017 as the end of the world, which is obviously nonsense. Others believe it will be the Protestant rapture and others the arrival of Nibiru or some other celestial object. This alignment may indeed signal a certain Marian period as described in Apoc. 12 will begin. On the actual day nothing unusual may happen on the earthly level at all but the stellar alignment of the Virgin crowned may begin a new phase of her mission to save mankind and to usher in a kingdom of peace according to God's Will.
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Divine Will, the Thief in the Night and the Gathering of Eagles: A Hebrew Catholic Insight

September 21, 2017, 10:37 pm
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Deuteronomy 32:11 describes the one who lives in Divine Will as a baby eagle (gosling) "As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings". The eagle represents the Divine Will soaring in the power of the Holy Spirit hovering or fluttering over the soul who lives in Divine Will.

This is linked to Genesis 1:2: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God fluttered upon the face of the waters."This alludes to the same concept of the fluttering or hovering of the Divine Will through the power of the Spirit of God over the 'face of the waters' (Our Lady in Eternity who lives in Divine Will). It also refers to Exodus 19:4: "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself."

Those who live in Divine Will are referred to as those who wait and watch for the Lord in the inner sanctuary. Isaiah 40:31"But those that wait for the LORD shall have new strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." They are the 36ers Lamed vavniks alluded to in Apocalypse 11:1 who remain in worship in the inner sanctuary of the Temple or Church when all the rest is destroyed. "And there was given me a reed like unto a rod, and he said unto me, Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those that worship therein."The measuring rod according to Jewish teaching is 6 cubits long and each cubit is made up of six hand breaths (6 x 6 = 36) and in Judaism 36 refers to the Lamed vavniks who live in God's Will as Adam lived in Divine Will in the Garden of Eden for 36 hours and as the 36 candles of Hannukah represent a manifestation of the Divine Will.
 

Again in Apocalypse  12:14 we see those who live in Divine Will connected with eagle wings. "And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the presence of the serpent into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times."This causes us to reflect on the mysterious saying of Jesus recorded in Matthew and Luke. Matthew 24:28: "Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together." and Luke 17:37: "And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Where the body is, there will the eagles be gathered together."

Many have translated and interpreted this as eagles or vultures who eat from a dead carcass or body. However I believe that the body here alludes to both the Church as the Body of the Messiah and the Eucharist where we gather to receive his Body. These verses reveal to us that those souls who live in Divine Will shall gather in the apocalyptic times to wait on and for the Lord with his Body the Church and become intercessors in Eucharistic Adoration in Divine Will. They live and abide in the Eucharist and are one with the blessings that flow from the monstrance and tabernacle into the world and to all generations. 

In this way they soar as an eagle in union with Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Luisa and all the other 36ers in Divine Will to all generations. This period is the time of the hidden or intermediate coming of the Lord as a 'Thief in the Night' who will appear as a lightning flash (the Divine Man revealed in his ten sefirot), not his final one in his flesh at the end of the world. This occurs at the end of the fifth period of Church history called the Church of Sardis.Apocalypse 3:3: "Remember, therefore, of that which thou hast received and heard and hold to it and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee." 


The so-called "taken", referred to by some Protestants in regards to the "rapture", most likely refers to those taken by the Lord to the wilderness to live in Divine Will and to lead the battle for God's Kingdom which is the Divine Will reigning on earth as it is in Heaven.  They are the bridesmaids with oil waiting, watching and prepared for the coming of the Bridegroom in the Night. Merakhafet (fluttering or hovering) is the 18th word of the Torah and 18 means Life. Thus when we flutter in the Divine Will in the Holy Spirit we create Divine Life for souls. Let us soar and hover in the Divine Will like the baby eagle resting on the Eagle's wings.



Australian Eagle being attacked by a magpie
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23 September Alignment, Jacob's Trouble and Divine Will:A Hebrew Catholic Reflection

September 24, 2017, 9:15 am
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The unique stellar alignment occurred yesterday which many Christians have linked to the Great Sign in Apocalypse 12. Many believe that this begins a period called Jacob's Trouble which is connected to the Heavenly sign of the Woman in Labour. This Woman is Our Lady as Mother of the Church and the Woman of Israel. Thus a period of trouble for the Church will begin.

Strangely enough an event did occur on the 23 September 2017 last Saturday and that was the release of the  document by 60 ultra-traditionalist Catholic theologians of an accusation of heresy against the Pope. Thus this new Donatist movement that accuses the very foundation rock of the Church may begin a period of 7 years tribulation for our holy mother the Church. This indeed may herald a major schism in the Church in which eventually may bring to "birth" the Pope-son who will rule the nations with a rod of iron (measuring rod). This measuring rod is also mentioned in Apoc.11:1 and alludes to the number 36 and the living in the Divine Will. Thus this may be the Pope who lives in Divine Will who Luisa Piccarreta wrote about in her writings.

Others have suggested some kind of significant event occurring on Michaelmas (September 29) which this year is also Jewish Yom Kippor. Others also expect something significant occurring on October 13 2017 on the 100th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. I personally believe that we have entered into a 7 year period of greater tribulations for the Church and Israel in which Our Lady will play a central role. This will include political turmoil and natural disasters getting even worse than the previous 7 years. The good news is that these tribulations will usher in a period of worldwide peace for many years and a new springtime for the Church and the Jewish people.
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Iconic Ecclesiology and the Jewish Roots: Diversity and Unity

September 24, 2017, 9:57 am
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“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple: and there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and earthquakes and great hail. And there appeared a great sign in the heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; and she being with child cried out, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” (Apoc. 11:19-12:1)

This week[1] in our Catholic parish this literary icon of the Church as the Great Sign in Apocalypse 12 was being discussed by many in the light of many diverse ordinary Christians believing that just such an alignment in the constellation of Virgo will appear over Jerusalem on September 23 2017 and its meaning in regards to the future of the Church.[2] Many Protestants are seeing it as a sign connected with the rapture of the Church, many Catholics are seeing its connection with Fatima where Virgin Miriam appeared clothed with the Sun in 1917 and its 100th Anniversary this year. Is this a new form of theological ecclesial ecumenism among the ordinary believers as both devout Protestants and Catholics are associating this Great Sign in the Heavens (Sky) with the Church, Israel and the Virgin Miriam and a time of persecution or chastisement follow by a new springtime or era of peace for the Church and the world? No doubt the theological and clerical elites[3] will ignore such forms of ecclesial ecumenism among the little ones of their flocks much in the way the Pharisees and Sadducees did in Second Temple times until the Temple and religious structures they had built fell down round their ears. The scholarly elites, while bringing much of value, often write much about diversity but often limit that diversity to that which fits their own paradigm of understanding.[4]


Identifying distinct ecclesiological models of the New or Second Testament period is a subject fraught with assumptions and speculations.  Many theologians have adopted assumptions about the early Church that are based more on their own (or their favourite scholar’s) self-created literary theories than on any scientific or historical evidence. [5][6]They speak of imaginary Markan, Lukan, Johannine, Pauline, Petrine etc communities for which there is no archaeological, historical or philological evidence.[7][8][9]However the Second Testament is full of what Komtov and Lepakhin call literary or verbal icons of the Church.[10][11]These Second Testament icons of the Church draw on the First Testament and Jewish tradition and literature. It would perhaps be better to refer to Markan, Lukan etc. icons of the Church rather than Markan, Lukan etc. communities.  The Church is a mystery that in its inner essence can only truly be spoken about and encountered fully in a poetic and iconic manner using analogical, metaphorical and the symbolic language of imagery.[12]In this short essay I will seek to touch on a few elements of the diverse iconologies of the Church which are in reality united like an onion to its rings or layers. Where some scholars see contradictions and oppositions[13]others encounter diverse iconic layers that serve an ecclesiological unity[14]that sheds light on the mystery that is the Church (Messianic Edah or Kehilla).[15]


The Second Testament period of the Church dates from its ecclesial beginnings in the Cenacle until the destruction of the Jewish Temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD. [16]This Church was a Jewish centred messianic community which also began to have thriving assemblies made up of Gentile believers. It also drew its Jewish members from different strands within Second Temple Judaism that brought their own ideas and insights into the Second Testament Church.

The Hillel and Essene traditions of Pharisaic Judaism were the most influential on the early Church but also the priestly or Temple rituals were also important to many Jews coming into the New Covenant Church especially those from the Sadducee tradition.[17] The Judaisers most likely coming from the Shammai school of the Pharisees into the Messianic community also played a role in the early Church.[18] It would seem that there is some evidence that the Hillel strand of the Jewish Church (centred in Jerusalem headed by a Messianic Davidic Nasi or Abbot) and the Essene strand (centred in Edessa headed by a charismatic prophet or Tzadik) may have developed in separate paths after 70 AD.[19][20]There were also a strong input of the Hellenist Jews to the early Church.[21] The later Church of the Uncircumcision or Gentiles after 70 AD starting developing in different directions with a more monarchical rule by bishops but still with its roots in Jewish thought and practice.[22] In the 5th century most of the remnants of the Jewish Church assimilated either into the Gentile Church or the Jewish Synagogue where they secretly maintained their Jewish Christian traditions and gradually some of these traditions and ideas were integrated into the Church or Synagogue.[23] 

This rich diversity of Jewish thought would act as a Jewish leaven as Yeshua revealed in his parable of the Bread or Challah Woman in Matthew 13:33. This parable is also an ecclesiological icon of the Church (the woman Ecclesia or Kneset Yisrael) which is both eschatological and Eucharistic. The Church is the leaven that is to grow into the fullness of the Kingdom of God throughout time and history. This alludes to Paul’s ecclesial and Eucharistic icon of the Church as the one loaf (challah) we all share (1 Cor. 10:17) and Luke’s iconic story of the breaking of the bread by the risen Messiah on the way to Emmaus.[24] Jewish tradition links the patient waiting for the challah dough to rise with the nurturing of a child in the maternal womb.[25] In 2013 Pope Francis linked the resurrection encounter of the Emmaus way experience with the concept of the maternal womb of mercy in his discussion of a new Biblical ecclesiological paradigm.[26] Thus the three strands or braids of the Messianic challah are the Eucharistic (sacrificial and liturgical), Marian (incarnational and mystical) and Petrine (eschatological and doctrinal) strands of the developing Messianic community which is symbolised by the Bread Woman who is Mother of the Church as the woman in labour and the Woman of Israel (Apoc.12).[27][28][29]
 There are many other diverse but interconnected icons of the Church (Ecclesia or Kehilla) found in the Second Testament Scriptures which all draw on the First Testament and Jewish tradition. It is difficult to discuss one without linking them to other iconic verses and passages of Scripture. Some of these literary icons found in the Second Testament are Body of the Messiah,[30]the Vineyard,[31]the Temple of God,[32]the Rock,[33]the Sign of Jonah,[34]the Yesod,[35]the Chuppah,[36]the Betrothed Virgin,[37]Manna eater,[38]the Light Bearer,[39]Seed of the Kingdom,[40]Follower of the Halakah (Way),[41]a Holy City,[42]the Olive Tree,[43]the Great Sign[44]and many others. All of these Second or New Testament icons of the Church have a rich heritage in the First Testament Scriptures and People. 


The later models of the Church would draw on these ecclesial Jewish icons and use them for their own understanding of the nature and mission of the Church. However like in the parable of the seeds some of these understandings of the Church would bear good fruit and others not, some would flourish for a season and then wither away.[45]Avery lists six ecclesiological models of the Church as Institution, Mystical Communion, Sacrament, Herald, Servant and Community of Disciples.[46]All of these models for Church build on some of the Scriptural ecclesiological literary icons mentioned above. They are adapted to suit the period of history and the development of doctrine since the time of the Second Testament period. The Western and Eastern rite Churches have developed these icons and insights in different ways. This short essay is not able to discuss this in any detail. 


One of the icons of the Church which has had prominence in the Western Church due especially to St Augustine is the icon of the Church as Holy City or City of God.[47]This idea has also a Sophiological and Marian dimension and understanding of the Church which is also found in Eastern rite Christianity especially in Russian Orthodoxy.[48][49]This perceives the Church as both Wisdom and Mother which when understood in a mystical and spiritual sense bears good fruit in a richness of diversity in unity but mixed with politics and power can become totalitarian, oppressive, conformist, uniform, utilitarian and monolithic (rather than universal). The visible man-made structures of the Church can then appear more like Lilith or Dame Folly rather than the maternal Lady of Wisdom of which the humble Virgin Miriam or the Repentant Miriam of  Magdala is the icon or model.[50]
 

 The pagan Roman governmental model adapted to the Church organisation was one post Biblical model used by the Churches of the Gentiles in both East and West. This model is the one Avery calls Institutional. This model may have served the Church well in the past in some sense, but is it time to revisit the earlier Jewish and scriptural models of Church governance without compromising the infallible teachings of faith and morals? Has the Church used the model of the Church as the rock and pillar and foundation of the truth through the ages in the true spirit of the Gospel or have we used it to enforce our truth rather than proclaim and offer it? During the time of the Church of the Gentiles[51]have we not truly discerned what is truly of the Spirit of the Messiah rather than the spirit of the world? Has the Church exercised power and authority like Gentile Lords?[52] 

The Gaelic pastoral structure model of the Irish Church was based more directly on the Jewish model of the Second Testament Church with the Abbot or Messianic Nasi (whether lay or clerical) as head of the institutional pastoral side of the Christian communities.[53] The Bishops were an important part of these monastic based communities but under the authority of the Abbot.[54] It wasn’t until the 12th century that Ireland embraced a more diocesan system.[55] An image of the Church drawn from the Song of Songs is the Nut Garden.[56] Can we break the hard shells of power and rigidity, that we have clothed our teachings in, to get to the delicious kernel of truth that the first Pope called Peter as the Son and Sign of Jonah was not a Roman Lord but a Jewish fisherman (with all the human weaknesses and failings) who was persecuted with his flock by the Gentile Lords of Rome who exercised their power over the little ones?[57]


The Church of the Gentiles has often confused the Church which is the seed or leaven of the Kingdom with the Kingdom of God (in Matthew called the Kingdom of Heaven) itself.[58]This has in certain places and times led to an overemphasis on the institutional and power aspects of the Church rather than the humble messianic servant of the people of God which is the mystical Body of the Messiah.[59]The important place of the Holy Spirit and communion in the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity in animating and breathing life into the Church and its structures and institutions has in the past been neglected by the scholars of the Latin Church.[60][61]  The mystical dimension in both Christianity and Judaism has often been swamped by a legalistic and rigid emphasis on rules and laws. Religious rules and laws are meant to be signposts to guide us on the spiritual and mystical journey into encounter with the Divine. When Torah is interpreted with the spirit and not the letter then it is perfect and converts or restores the soul.[62]


One of the Second Testament icons of the Church is the Chuppah or bridal tent or chamber in which the marriage is consummated. Yeshua refers to his disciples as children of the Chuppah and to himself as the Chatan (bridegroom)[63]which alludes to the Song of Songs and Psalm 19. Psalm 19 also mystically and conceptually draws on Genesis 1.[64]This bridegroom in Psalm 19 is identified as the Sun and the bridal tent as the tent or chamber of the sun and linked by the early Jewish –Christians with the Messiah mentioned in Malachi as the Sun of righteousness who arises with healing in his wings (the tent flaps). 

Jewish tradition as taught by Breslov Hasidism refer to these “wings of the sun” as the sun garments or coverings (bridal garments of the Chatan[65]) which allows God’s glory and Will to be perceived by his creatures. The “wings of the sun” that brings healing is the teachings of the True Tzaddik (righteous one). This True Tzaddik thus fashions vessels that allow us to encounter God’s glory (kavod) and presence (shekhinah) in our lives.[66] Thus the Chuppah alludes to the Sun Temple (tent or tabernacle) where the Sun Bridegroom consummates his union with his Bride (who is symbolised by the Moon) at the midnight hour[67] (see the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins).[68] At the moment of consummation the Moon Bride eclipses her Lover the Sun Bridegroom. This alludes to the darkness and hiddenness of mystery and sacrament. 

This mystical, incarnational and sacramental understanding of the Church has had a revival today in the teachings of Pope John Paul II on the “theology of the Body”. Thus the icon of the Church as Chuppah is closely linked to the icons of the Church as Body of the Messiah and Temple and Tabernacle of the Lord as well as the Bride of Messiah and Betrothed Virgin.


In this brief essay I have sought to touch on some of the mystery of the Church from an iconic ecclesiological perspective drawing in particular on the Jewish roots of the Church interpreted through a paradigm of diversity in unity. While not always agreeing with the theological perspectives of Raymond Brown and Richard McBrien, I concur with them in their understanding that the numerous and diverse Second Testament iconologies of the Church are one of continuity and development within the framework of diversity with unity rather than that of contradictory and competing ecclesiologies as proposed by Kaseman and others. “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come!’…”.[69]                 


Bibliography
Addleshaw, George William Outram. The Pastoral Structure of the Celtic Church in Northern Britain. No. 43. Borthwick Publications, 1973.

Augustine, Aurelius. The City of God. Vol. 1. Lulu. com, 1945.

Bird, Michael F. "The Markan Community, Myth or Maze? Bauckham's the Gospel for all Christians Revisited."The Journal of Theological Studies 57.2 (2006): 474-486.

Brown, Raymond E. "The Unity and Diversity in New Testament Ecclesioyogy."Novum Testamentum 6.Fasc. 4 (1963): 298-308.

Cooley, Jeffrey L. "Psalm 19: A Sabbath Song1."Vetus Testamentum 64.2 (2014): 177-195.
Crossan, John Dominic. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography Harper: San Francisco, 1994.
Doyle, Dennis M. Communion Ecclesiology: Vision and Versions. Mary-knoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000.
Dulles, Avery. Models of Church, Expanded ed. New York: Image Books, 1974/ 1987.
Ebo Annan, Stephen. "“Do not Stifle the Spirit”: The Vision of Yves Congar for Charismatic Ecclesiology."New Blackfriars95.1058 (2014): 443-467.
Falk, Harvey (Rabbi) Jesus the Pharisee; A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus, New York ; Paulist Press, 1985.
Flanagan, Marie Therese. The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Vol. 29. Boydell & Brewer, 2010.

Friedman OC, Elias (Father). Jewish identity. USA Miriam Press, 1987.
Greenbaum, Avraham. The wings of the sun: Traditional Jewish healing in theory and practice. Azamra Institute, 1995.
Hahnenberg, Edward P. "The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Ecclesiology: Historical Parallels."Irish Theological Quarterly 70.1 (2005): 3-30.

Käsemann, Ernst. "Unity and diversity in New Testament ecclesiology."Novum Testamentum 6.Fasc. 4 (1963): 290-297.

Komkov, Oleg. "The Vertical Form: Iconological Dimension in 20th Century Russian Religious Aesthetics and Literary Criticism."Literature and Theology 20.1 (2006): 7-19.
Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch. Divine Sophia: The Wisdom writings of Vladimir Solovyov  New York; Cornell University Press, 2009.
Lane, Dermot A. "The Eucharist as Sacrament of the Eschaton."The Furrow 47.9 (1996): 467-473.

Lepakhin, Valerii. "Basic Types of Correlation between Text and Icon, between Verbal and Visual Icons."Literature and Theology 20.1 (2006): 20-30.

Manoussakis, John Panteleimon. "The Anarchic Principle of Christian Eschatology in the Eucharistic Tradition of the Eastern Church."Harvard Theological Review 100.1 (2007): 29-46.

McBrien, Richard P. The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism. Harper Collins, 2008.

Peterson, Dwight N. The origins of Mark: the Markan community in current debate. Vol. 48. Brill, 2000.

Pinson, Rochie (Rebbetzin). The Rising Life: Challah Baking, Elevated. Orly Press, 2015.

Pope Francis, APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO RIO DE JANEIRO ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXVIII WORLD YOUTH DAY MEETING WITH THE BISHOPS OF BRAZIL http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130727_gmg-episcopato-brasile.html
Robinson, John A T (Bishop) Redating the New Testament Philedelphia: Westminister Press, 1976).
Skarsaune, Oskar. In the shadow of the Temple: Jewish influences on early Christianity. InterVarsity Press, 2008.
Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. Jewish believers in Jesus: the early centuries. Hendrickson Pub, 2007.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Jesus: An Experiment in Christology London: Collins, 1979.
Schipflinger, Thomas. Sophia-Maria: A Holistic Vision of Creation, USA: Samuel Weiser Inc, 1998.
Torrey, C. C.  The Apocalypse of John, New Haven, Conn, 1958.
van de Sandt, Hubertus Waltherus Maria, ed. Matthew and the Didache: two documents from the same Jewish-Christian milieu?. Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2005.







[1]August 15 and the readings of Our Lady’s Assumption.
[2]According to these reports on September 23 the constellation Virgo will appear in the sky above Jerusalem with 12 stars- nine from Leo and the other three are planets and the sun over the shoulder of Virgo and the moon under her feet. Jupiter will spend about 9 months in the “womb” of Virgo before exiting a few days earlier. Apparently this last occurred 7,000 years ago.
[3]Brendan O’Neill the political commentator and journalist speaks of the sneering political elites but one could extend this to the sneering theological and religious elites too.
[4] Richard P McBrien, The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism. (Harper Collins, 2008), 25.
[5]Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (London: Collins, 1979), 364-379.
[6] John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, (San Francisco: Harper, 1994),160.
[7]Michael F Bird, “The Markan Community, Myth or Maze: Bauckham’s The Gospel For All Christians Revisited” Journal of Theological Studies Vol 57 pt 2 (UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), 475-477
[8]Dwight N Peterson, The Origins of Mark: The Markan Community in Current Debate, (Leiden:Brill, 2000), 4-5.
[9]Bishop John A T Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philedelphia: Westminister Press, 1976) 1-30.
[10] Valerii Lepakhin, "Basic Types of Correlation between Text and Icon, between Verbal and Visual Icons."Literature and Theology 20, no. 1 (2006): 20.
[11] Oleg Komkov, "The Vertical Form: Iconological Dimension in 20th Century Russian Religious Aesthetics and Literary Criticism."Literature and Theology20, no. 1 (2006), 8-9.
[12] McBrien, The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism, 16.
[13] Ernst Käsemann, "Unity and diversity in New Testament ecclesiology."Novum Testamentum 6.Fasc. 4 (1963): 291-293.
[14] Brown, Raymond E. "The Unity and Diversity in New Testament Ecclesioyogy."Novum Testamentum 6.Fasc. 4 (1963): 298-308.
[15] McBrien, The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism, 27.
[16]C. C. Torrey, The Apocalypse of John, (New Haven, Conn, 1958), 86 
[17]Rabbi Harvey Falk, Jesus the Pharisee; A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus, New York ; Paulist Press, 1985.
[18]Book of Acts
[19]These questions are tied up with the role of the Davidic Nassim in the later Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities and cannot be discussed here in any detail. The Jerusalem Church had three pillars- a Messianic Davidic Nasi in St James (kingly), a Av Beth Din or Chief Rabbi (prophetic) in St John and a Chief Priest or Hegmon Parnas (Priestly) in St Peter. The later Celtic communities called these three the Abbot, the Chief Scribe and the Chief Bishop. A community could have more than one Bishop who were selected from the priests due to their wisdom and sanctity. An Abbot could be a layman or woman as long as they came from the right noble lineage.
[20] Hubertus Waltherus Maria van de Sandt,  ed. Matthew and the Didache: two documents from the same Jewish-Christian milieu?. (Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2005), 28-30.
[21] Käsemann, "Unity and diversity in New Testament ecclesiology.", 291.
[22]Oskar Skarsaune, In the shadow of the Temple: Jewish influences on early Christianity. InterVarsity Press, 2008.
[23]See Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. Jewish believers in Jesus: the early centuries. Hendrickson Pub, 2007.
[24]Luke 24
[25]See Rochie Pinson The Rising Life: Challah Baking, Elevated. Orly Press, 2015.
[26]  Pope Francis, APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO RIO DE JANEIRO ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXVIII WORLD YOUTH DAY MEETING WITH THE BISHOPS OF BRAZIL http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130727_gmg-episcopato-brasile.html
[27]John Panteleimon Manoussakis, “The Anarchic Principle of Christian Eschatology in the Eucharistic Tradition of the Eastern Church” in Harvard Theological Review Volume 100 , Issue 1 (January 2007), 29.
[28]Dermot A Lane, “The Eucharist as Sacrament of the Eschaton” The Furrow Vol. 47, No. 9 (September 1996), 467.
[29]Judith Deutsch Kornblatt,  Divine Sophia: The Wisdom writings of Vladimir Solovyov  (New York; Cornell University Press, 2009) 204-209.
[30]1 Cor.12:12-27 and Eph.1:22-23
[31]John 15:1-11
[32]Eph.2:20-21 and 1 Cor.3:16
[33]Matt.16:18 and Matt. 7:24
[34]Matt.12:39-40
[35]1 Timothy 3:15
[36]Luke 5:33-34 and John 14:1-4
[37]2 Cor.11:2
[38]John 6
[39]Matt.5:13-16
[40]Matt.13:1-23 and Matt:13:31-32
[41]Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22
[42]Matt.5:14
[43]Romans 11
[44]Apoc.12:1
[45]Matt.13
[46]Avery Dulles, Models of Church, Expanded ed. (New York: Image Books, 1974/ 1987), 197-210.
[47] Augustine, Aurelius. The city of God. Vol. 1. Lulu. com, 1945.
[48]Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria: A Holistic Vision of Creation, (USA: Samuel Weiser Inc, 1998), 67-71.
[49]Kornblatt, Divine Sophia: The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov, 208-9.
[50]See Proverbs
[51]Luke 21:24 and Romans 11:25 Father Elias Friedman founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics saw the restoration of Jerusalem to the Jewish people in 1967 as ushering in the period known as the end of the time of the Gentiles which will culminate with Paul’s resurrection and restoration and ingathering or ingrafting of the Jewish people into the Church. See Elias Friedman, Jewish identity. USA: Miriam Press, 1987.
[52]Matthew 20:25-26
[53]Monsignor Harry Entwhistle a former Anglican Bishop and present Ordinary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross (established for those of Anglican tradition who enter into union with the Pope) has proposed this Celtic model as a better pastoral structure for the Church of the future.
[54] George William Outram Addleshaw, The Pastoral Structure of the Celtic Church in Northern Britain. No. 43. Borthwick Publications, 1973, 1-2
[55] Marie Therese Flanagan. The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Vol. 29. Boydell & Brewer, 2010.
[56]Song of Songs 6:11
[57]The nut is also associated with the Bridegroom in the Jewish wedding blessings. See Idel, Moshe. Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia, The. Suny Press, 2012.
[58] McBrien, The church: The Evolution of Catholicism, 4-5
[59] Edward P Hahnenberg, "The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Ecclesiology: Historical Parallels."Irish Theological Quarterly 70.1 (2005): 4-12.
[60] Stephen Ebo Annan, "“Do not Stifle the Spirit”: The Vision of Yves Congar for Charismatic Ecclesiology."New Blackfriars 95.1058 (2014): 443-467.
[61]Dennis M Doyle, Communion Ecclesiology: Vision and Versions. Mary-knoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000.
[62]Psalm 19:7
[63]Luke 5:33-34
[64] Jeffrey L Cooley, "Psalm 19: A Sabbath Song1."Vetus Testamentum 64.2 (2014): 179-81.
[65]See Matthew 22
[66]See Greenbaum, Avraham. The wings of the sun: Traditional Jewish healing in theory and practice. Azamra Institute, 1995.
[67]Orthodox Jews make love on Friday nights (Sabbath) at midnight and see it as uniting the Divine King with his Shekhinah who is the Sabbath Bride. In a sense the weekly Sabbath meal is the mystical wedding feast. Some scholars believe that many of these mystical understandings in Orthodox Judaism have their source in those Jewish-Christians who rejoined the Synagogue in the 5th century while drawing from the early mystical traditions of Second Temple Judaism.
[68]Matthew 25:1-13
[69]Apoc.22:17
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