Hi, Linda —

Thanks for your question.

First off, let me congratulate you on your conversion and welcome you home to the Church.

Now to your question. Jesus was born a Jew, was brought up a Jew, and continues, in His humanity, to be a Jew. Hence, Christianity and the Church is the fulfillment of Judaism.

St. Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians that, in and through the person of Jesus Christ,
both Jews and Gentiles become one in Body of Christ which is the Church of Jesus Christ.

I would suggest you read the entire epistle but here is just one quote:

19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

The Church of Jesus Christ fully subsists in the Catholic Church. The word Catholic simply means universal.

The earliest written reference to the Church as being Catholic is found in a works of St. Ignatius of Antioch who wrote sometime around 100-110 A.D.:

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution (17) of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper (18) Eucharist, which is [administered] either even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid. (2) See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles.

The Epistle Of Ignatius To The Smyrnaeans (Chapter 8)

If we go back further to the book of Acts we see a progression. Originally the Church was considered a sect of Judaism. It had names lie the Nazarenes or The Way. Later the book of Acts records that, at Antioch, believers in Jesus were first called Christian, meaning little Christ's.

The point is that from the very beginning, the Church was one and not many different churches as we have today. True, there was not a perfect accord; they had their disputes but they met in Councils to resolve them.

We also see this in the book of Acts, Chapter 15. There we read that the Church had to decide how to handle non-Jews entering the Church, so they met in a Council in Jerusalem. There, the Apostles, together with Peter, the Chief Apostle and Vicar of Christ, discerned the will of God in this matter.

In the quote above from Ephesians, notice Paul's reference to the Apostles as the foundation of the Church. The Catholic Church, today, is that same Church founded on the Apostles with Peter's Successor (the Pope) being the Chief among the other bishops, who also can trace their lineage back to the twelve Apostles.

No other Church can validly make that claim. There are Churches such as the Orthodox Church which have valid Apostolic Succession, but they have broken away from the Successor of Peter. The Protestant Churches can barely trace their inception to the middle ages. There are some 30,000 of them at last count. Essentially they all are rooted in ideas of men like Martin Luther and John Calvin but, there are so many variations, you can't keep track of them. They all broke away from the Catholic Church.

See it's pretty simple, Jesus Himself, gave authority to Peter. We read about it in Matthew 16.

17 Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven. 18 "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 19 "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven."

Matthew 16:17-19

Along with authority we see, in verse 18, a promise that gates of Hell won't prevail against the Church.

He doesn't talk about churches, He says His Church. That Church is the Church where Peter serves as Chief earthly shepherd among the shepherds of Christ's sheep.

John

Linda,

I would just like to add that Jesus is, Himself:

• the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets
• the fulfillment of the promise, and
• the Word of the Torah, Himself, made flesh.

In Him, God's plan is fulfilled, and it remains for all to be incorporated into His Living Body, which subsists in the Catholic Church.

Most Jewish converts say that they don't leave Judaism when they become Catholic; instead, they have their Judaism fulfilled.

Mary Ann

Dear Linda,

You said:
I know Jesus was a Jewish carpenter and now all I hear is the Catholic Church was the first Church.

• Where in the Bible does it say that?

It doesn't say the Catholic Church was the first Church nor could it ever say that.

• Why?

Because the Bible or canon of the Bible wasn't known until 382 A.D. at the Council of Rome. Jesus founded His Church in 33 A.D. on St. Peter and His Twelve Apostles. This is the biggest problem with Sola Scriptura . . . it totally ignores Oral Tradition. If we take into mind Oral Tradition:

• we know from history what St. Ignatius of Antioch who wrote (from John's reply) sometime around 100-110 A.D.
• we also know what St. Pacian of Barcelona, bishop of Barcelona said between 310-375 A.D. (Read the home page of our site.), and
• even in the Bible it tells us the pillar and foundation of Truth, is not the Bible, but the Church (1 Timothy 3:15) . . . and at the time those words were written, there was only one Christian Church on the face of the Earth: the Catholic Church.

You said:

• Does this mean all his disciples were Catholic too?

Yes, it does!!

• Don't believe me?

I invite you to visit one of my other two web sites:

• BibleBeltCatholics.com
  Sharing the voice and writings of the Early Church Fathers, the first Christians who succeeded the Apostles, with our separated Christian brethren in the South!

I let you compare what the very first Apostles and Disciples orally said from 100 A.D. to 800 A.D. and compare that to what the 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church says.

Compare and decide for yourself!

My friend, David Moss, at the Association of Hebrew Catholics may have some addition insights. I've sent him your question as well.

Hope this helps,

Mike

Hi Mike,

David Moss asked me to reply to Linda's questions on the relationship between the Jewish and Catholic faiths. I'm Marty Barrack, author of the Second Exodus web site.

You already have several very good answers to Linda's question, but perhaps I can add something as well.

Second Exodus' home page begins: "God would never come to his people through two separate religions [one denying Jesus and the other affirming him as the Messiah]. There is only one continuing revelation CCC § 839, called Jewish when it was the religion of the Judean people, and Catholic when it was opened to all the world. God changed the names of Abram (Genesis 17:5), Sarai (Genesis 17:15), Jacob (Genesis 32:28) and Simon (Matthew 16:18) when their relationship to him changed. As he promised in Isaiah 62:2, he has changed the name of his community of faith. Jesus came to fulfill the Old Covenant (Matthew 5:17), which remains an everlasting part of salvation history."

• What? Are we the same Faith?

About 80 percent of the Catholic Canon of Sacred Scripture is the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible. The Ten Commandments are the baseline for Catholic morality. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they start at CCC § 2052 and take up fully 18% of the entire Catechism, ending at CCC § 2557. The Catholic Church is the synagogue fulfilled by the Messiah.

Many Jews followed Jesus, others did not follow. The Jews who followed Jesus are now called Catholics. The Jews who did not follow Him are called Rabbinic Jews, which include Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews. Most of them still do not follow Him, of course, but a significant number have Jewish origins and have become Catholic during our earthly lives. Many of us gather round the Association of Hebrew Catholics.

Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in Feast of Faith page 57,

“The whole of Eucharistic Christology is present in the todah spirituality of the Old Testament.” (Todah = Hebrew: thanks)

The Catechism CCC § 839 says,

"When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, the first to hear the Word of God. The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”

The rabbis always tell us that we can know Judaism is true because only Judaism was given in a National Revelation to all the faithful at the same time. Only God could do that. And most Catholics agree. But there was also a second National Revelation to the Jews through Jesus, who was known throughout his public revelation as Rabbi Yeshua. If the first National Revelation to the Jews is true because it was a national revelation, the second one also has to be true for the same reason. It's both or neither, they are welded together in salvation history.

If anything, the case for the National Revelation through Jesus is stronger. Jesus was the only person ever pre-announced. Israel in Egypt believed that someday a deliverer would come to free them, but there was nothing like the specific prophecies that attended Jesus' arrival. Jesus' National Revelation included a specific fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, Ezekiel 37:11-12 fulfilled in Matthew 27:45-54. And only Jesus' arrival hit the world with such force that he split all history in two. Nearly everyone in the world dates every event that has ever occurred as so many years before or after Jesus' birth.

• Was Jesus' National Revelation a real National Revelation?

Isaiah prophesied it: “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” Isaiah 40:5. He gave that prophecy centuries after Moses, in the future tense, so it couldn't have referred to Moses. It could only have referred to Jesus, especially together with Ezekiel's prophecy fulfilled at the moment of his Final Sacrifice on the Cross.

• What exactly does it mean to fulfill?

Jesus said he had come to fulfill the law and the prophets, that is, the Old Testament, to make them complete Matthew 5:17. For instance, God revealed himself to Moses as ONE God. At that time, the world was full of many false gods. God of Israel told us that there is only ONE true God. At that time he could not complete the teaching because everyone would have said, “Oh, we get it, three gods.” No. He had to wait until we his covenant children were ready to receive the full explanation: He is One Holy Trinity. One God, a family of three divine persons, distinct but not separate.

And God does not change Malachi 3:6. If he was One Holy Trinity when Jesus came, he was One Holy Trinity when Moses came, and has been and will be forever.

God bless you!

Marty <><
secondexodus.com