THE ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL CENTER FOR CATHOLIC-JEWISH RELATIONS THE JOHN PAUL II CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LUBLIN

At the Last Supper, in conversation with the apostles, Jesus prepares them for his final departure to the Father's House.Forty days after his resurrection, he will ascend into heaven. Jesus announces to the apostles that He is going there to prepare a place for them. "In my Father's house… Read more… »

The lectionary for the 4th Sunday of Easter includes Acts 2.14a, 36-41. This reading, unless carefully explained, will either inculcate or reinforce Jew-hatred. In Acts 2, Peter addresses, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem,” (Acts 2.14) and tells them “Let the whole house of Israel know for… Read more… »

The Risen Jesus appears in today's verses of the Gospel to two disciples heading to Emmaus. They are distressed, disappointed, and disillusioned, because the Messiah was supposed to have restored Israel's splendour, renewed the kingdom, liberated the Israelites from Roman occupation, and was to have revealed Himself as the… Read more… »

Children always find it challenging to forgive their fellow friends who offended them.Does it even make sense to forgive someone who upsets us? Forgiveness is a challenge.In the Gospel according to John (Jn 20:23) Jesus is teaching: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain… Read more… »

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to women first. Moreover, He told them to go to the apostles and tell them He was alive.One of these women was Mary Magdalene, who, in the tradition of the Eastern Churches, is called the Apostle of the Apostles precisely because it was she… Read more… »

Passover or Pesach in Hebrew is a time of celebration of freedom and faith.  Jews remember the story of liberation from Egyptian slavery. God, confessed until then as the Creator of the World, revealed himself as the Liberator. Passover is the time when, abandoning our personal slavery, we are… Read more… »

“If Christians forget the connections between Passover and the Last Supper, they risk forgetting not only the Exodus, they also risk forgetting Jesus’s affirmation of Jewish Scriptures and tradition”, explains Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, the first Jewish woman to teach New Testament at… Read more… »

In a dialogue with a Samaritan woman, Jesus admits clearly that he is the Messiah. In response to the woman's frank confession, " I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything." (John 4:25), Jesus, with disarming sincerity… Read more… »

On the mountain, Peter and the disciples saw Jesus, Moses, and Elijah and Peter thought he had already understood everything. After a while, however, they heard the voice of God saying that Jesus was Someone unique, Someone "qualitatively different" from Moses and Elijah. It was only then that they… Read more… »

In the Old Testament, the desert was a land never covered by God's blessing. God, however, when preparing his chosen ones, such as Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist, for some weighty tasks, leads them out into the desert. Jesus too, at the beginning of his public ministry, spends… Read more… »

“I hear frequently from Christians that Jews promote the retributive violence of an eye for an eye whereas Jesus teaches the restorative justice of turning the other cheek. This interpretation misunderstands both Jesus and Judaism. Jesus is speaking about humiliation, not mutilation. The Jewish tradition does not promote retributive… Read more… »

"A text without context creates a pretext", I once heard from a priest, a Bible scholar. I fully agree with this statement, especially in reference to Scripture, both the Old and New Testament. The text of the Bible was being penned for over a millennium by a few dozen… Read more… »

Like salt, we as Christians are to give God's flavor to the lives of others. Like light, we are to give hope to others in the darkness of everyday life. Like the city on the mountain - Jerusalem - our lives are to be a witness and lead others… Read more… »

In today's Gospel, the disciples become "fishers of men." But if we think a little more deeply, this image becomes somewhat disturbing. Fish pulled out of the water quickly perish, they have no chance of survival. So why did Jesus call his disciples "fishers of men"? Why do the… Read more… »

Political ChallengeMatthew chapter 2 opens with the phrase, “In the time of King Herod.” That word “king” asks readers to make a choice: to follow “King Herod,” Rome’s agent who ruled by violence, or to follow the new king, introduced in chapter 1 as the “son of David.”When the… Read more… »

The Gospel for the first day of the Year 2023, the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, seems to have two scenes. The first scene is about the shepherds who heard from the angels that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. They wanted to see… Read more… »

How do we react at difficult moments, how do we behave at periods which seem darker in our life?  On Adam and Eve's first winter on Earth the days turned shorter and shorter.  The sages in the Babylon Talmud tell us that when Adam, the first man saw that the day… Read more… »

Jesus (Hebrew: Yeshua) is a shortened version of the name "Yehoshua" (Lord saves), Emmanuel (Hebrew: immanu El) means "God with us" - two Hebrew names that contain the essence and function of the announced Messiah, writes biblical scholar Fr. Prof. Dr. Miroslaw Wróbel, director of the Abraham J. Heschel… Read more… »

The announcement of the Messiah, who comes and heals His people and is willing to suffer for them. Jesus used this and other concepts because he knew that his listeners were well familiar with them and he wanted them to read the events of his time in this light… Read more… »

Why does Jesus use the comparison to a thief? - asks Dr. Faydra Shapiro, director of the Israel Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, in a commentary for the Heschel Center of the Catholic University of Lublin. The key is the Law of Moses relating to theft. This context provides a… Read more… »