Praying the Litany on Holocaust Memorial Day
Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers ...
The dark shadow of antisemitism has long blighted and disfigured the Church's life: from anti-Semitic comments of Chrysostom to the blood libel in medieval Christendom, from Luther's vile sermons against the Jews to the contemporary antisemitism found in both progressive and 'radtrad' theologies. The Anglican tradition has not been immune to this toxic virus. Robert Ingram's study of Thomas Secker - the mid-18th century Archbishop of Canterbury - notes how Secker sought to defend the 1753 Jew Bill, which provided for the naturalisation of Jews as British Subjects, against a coalition which included "many Anglican clergy". Secker lamented "the clerical assault on the Jew Bill", referring to their "astonishing Rage and Bitterness".
Long centuries of Christian anti-Semitism provided a breeding ground for the demonic fantasies of Nazism, succouring the bigotry which enabled the Holocaust. In this petition of the Litany, we hold the shame of these offences before God, repenting of the sin of antisemitism in the Church's life and witness.
... the concept of responsibility for sin being shared by members of a community both present and past has deep roots in Christian tradition, including the Scriptures. Where the continuing effects of past sins by members of the one body of Christ continue to be felt and where those sins have not come to an end, then members of Christ’s body here and now are bound to seek God’s mercy. Repentance in this as in any other context needs to identify and name what is sinful, letting it be seen for what it is in the light of God’s righteousness, and not take refuge in vague generalities - God’s Unfailing Word: Theological and Practical Perspectives on Christian–Jewish Relations, Church of England Faith and Order Commission, 2019, p.20.
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By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision ...
The flesh assumed by the Eternal Word was Jewish flesh. Assumed in the womb of a Jewish woman from Nazareth; proclaimed by the angel to be the Son of David, of the House of Jacob; His approaching birth seen by His Mother as fulfilling what God "spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed"; heralded by a priest of the Jerusalem Temple, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel'; born in the city of David; circumcised on the eighth day.
This petition of the Litany powerfully reminds us of that antisemitism is a blasphemy, a rejection of the flesh and blood of the Messiah. It reminds us that the Jewish people are to be reverenced by Christians as the people "of whom concerning the flesh Christ came" (Romans 9:5).
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That it may please thee to give us an heart to love and fear thee, and diligently to live after thy commandments.
We recall that "no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral", given to Moses, the prophet of Israel. The great moral tradition of Israel continues to fundamentally shape the Church. In the words of the Catechism:
Question. You said that your Godfathers and Godmothers did promise for you, that you should keep God's Commandments. Tell me how many there be?
Answer. Ten.
Question. Which be they?
Answer. The same which God spake in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
This deep dependence on Israel's story and tradition of moral reflection calls the Church away from the spectre of Marcionism and those theologies which drink of that poisoned font. As Rowan Williams has recently stated:
There is a bad habit among Christians of repeating cliches about law and gospel, casting the law as the villain (with a long-standing antisemitic undercurrent in this), standing over against the liberating and merciful gospel ... the community created by God in the covenant made with Israel and in the invitation declared in the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit is most emphatically a community of 'lawfulness' ... The Church, no less than the Israelites receiving the Torah from Moses, is a society in which mutual accountability is built into the very foundations of common life.
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O Lamb of God: that takest away the sins of the world ...
At the conclusion of the Litany, we see that our prayer as the Church is rooted in Israel's story of redemption, of the Passover lamb: "the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night". In so doing, the Litany here also points to how the Sacraments of the Christian Gospel flow from Israel's story. In the words of the Baptismal rite:
and also didst safely lead the children of Israel thy people through the Red Sea.
At the Holy Communion, we praise the Lord whom we receive in the Sacrament as "Lamb of God ... that takest away the sins of the world". At Easter, the proper preface rejoices that "he is the very Paschal Lamb". The grace and mercy of the Lord's saving sacrifice, bestowed upon us in the Sacraments of Baptism and holy Supper, can only be understood within the story of Israel, of Exodus and Passover. Antisemitism, then, is a rejection of the salvation wrought by Our Lord Jesus Christ and set before us in the Sacraments of the Gospel.
... encounter with the contemporary reality of the faithfulness of Jewish people – in readiness to learn by attentive listening and to be surprised by what is received – can be confidently relied on to be a means of God’s grace to us and an occasion for the renewal of our own faith, as we experience in such meeting the intertwining of both our kinship and our divergence - God’s Unfailing Word, p.46.
The Jewish people's memory and celebration of "the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt" calls the Church into a deeper experience of the Crucified and Risen Lord.
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On this day when we recall the foul evil which led to the slaughter during the Shoah of millions of Jewish children, women, men, it is right that Christians repent of antisemitism and receive afresh the gift of the witness of the Jewish people.
Wednesday is a traditional day for praying the Litany, a practice infused with penitence. It can also lead us to a renewed sense of gratitude for the gifts bestowed on us by the God of Abraham, the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is both lament for the long, dark shadow of antisemitism in the Christian tradition and gives meaningful expression to what it is for the Church to be "grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree" (Romans 11:24).
On this Holocaust Memorial Day, pray the Litany.
(The picture is of the sculpture 'Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time', at the Institute for Catholic–Jewish Relations at St Joseph’s University, Philadelphia. It is used on the front cover of God's Unfailing Word, and is therein described as "reimagin[ing] the relationship between Judaism and Christianity as one of mutual affection and interdependence".)
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