Life from the Dead

Extract

In the material order, a man owns whatever he keeps; in the spiritual order, however, we own what we give away. The grace of election, given us so freely, is not bestowed upon us as if we were alone in the world, and without neighbours in sight; citizenship in the Kingdom of God is granted us that we may share it. No one can be a Catholic who is not a missioner at heart, who does not wish, pray, and work that all may be one in the Lord. And of all the apostolates, that to Israel is not the least. Her return to Christ is the last particular intention of our Octave, because it will be near the end of ages that the whole of the people comes to him. But though last in time, it is by no means last in rank.

The Church of Christ is the Israel of old, prolonged and extended—nay, renewed in youth like the eagle, enriched and fulfilled. ‘We are the House of Israel. We are Israel, the vineyard of the Lord,’ says an early Christian writer, (Pseudo Ambrosius, s. 58, n. 2; P.L. 17; 723) And another calls Abraham ‘the Father of the Church.’ St Augustine goes further; he makes the Church speak: ‘When God blessed Abraham, it was I he promised. The blessing of Christ, I am indeed spread through all the nations.’ (De Fide Rerum, 5; P.L. 40, 174) Each year, on Holy Saturday, before the blessing of the baptismal font, the Church herself remembers that in the Christian eon the miracles of old shine anew, and that what God’s mighty arm wrought when he freed from the yoke of Egypt the One People, he works now for the Gentiles in the waters of regeneration.