Our Mission: Loving Israel, Loving Messiah, Loving the Church
'To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood.' (CCC 845)
Catholics
for Israel is a Catholic apostolate, faithful to the Magisterium, of
Jewish and Gentile Catholics from Israel and from the nations.
Our mission includes the following points:
Loving Israel
- Building bridges between Israel and the Church,
- Fostering friendship between Jews and Christians;
- Studying and teaching the Jewish roots of the Catholic faith;
- Reflecting on the “mystery of Israel” and on the prophetic role of Israel today;
- Encouraging humble repentance for past sins of Christians against the Jewish people;
- Promoting justice, peace and reconciliation between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, rooted in Jesus Christ;
- Informing Christians about the situation of the Church in the Middle East;
- Providing a balance to the anti-Israel bias that is prevalent in much of the secular media.
Loving Messiah
- Proclaiming
the Christ’s Gospel to all people – Jews, Christians and Muslims – in
obedience to His Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations”
(Mt 28:19);
- Humbly and sensitively witnessing the Gospel to
“the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, the Jewish people, while
upholding a great respect for Jewish faith and traditions;
- Providing
resources in Hebrew introducing the person of Jesus with particular
emphasis on his Jewishness (e.g The Messiah in the Old Testament and in
Jewish sources).
Loving the Church
- Teaching how the Catholic Church is the fulfillment of all that was promised to Israel;
- Fostering
Christian unity and love for the Church by teaching the biblical and
Jewish foundations of Catholic beliefs that are often disputed or
rejected by other Christians;
- Supplying multi-media teaching
resources for evangelization and catechesis, including a complete
online course with 57 multi-media lessons covering the entire biblical
story of salvation and all of the Catechism of the Catholic Church;
- Creating
a “space” within the Church where Jews who find Christ and enter the
Church can preserve the Jewish expression of their faith while living
out a fully Catholic life.
Our Mission to Catholics:
Our mission to Catholics is to encourage a deeper conversion to and
communion with Jesus the Messiah and a greater faithfulness to His
Body, the Catholic Church, while pondering on the “mystery of Israel”
and God’s continued presence and action among the Jewish people and
throughout their history; to foster a greater understanding of the
Jewish roots and heritage of the Catholic faith, encourage repentance
from all forms of anti-Semitism and foster a love for the Jewish people
and for Israel; and to counter the errors of “replacement theology” and
“dual-covenant theology.” We also wish to contribute in creating a
"space" within the Church where Catholic Jews may live a genuinely
Catholic faith while remaining entirely faithful to their Jewishness.
Our Mission to Other Christians:
Our mission to non-Catholic Christians is to provide resources that
explain and clarify the biblical roots of the Catholic faith so that
our brothers and sisters in Messiah may discover and receive as their
own the fullness of Jesus' gifts to them, particularly His own
self-gift in the Eucharist and the other sacraments, and so that they
may have the opportunity to come to full unity and communion with His Body, the Catholic
Church, and with all the saints in heaven and on earth (CCC 816).
Our Mission to Messianic Jews:
Messianic Jews are Jews who believe that Yeshua (Jesus)
is the Messiah of Israel and Son of God. Catholics for Israel wishes
to promote understanding, dialogue and friendship between Catholics and
Messianic Jews who, as baptized believers in Yeshua, are brothers and
sisters in Messiah, although in imperfect unity because of issues that
still divide the two communities. We wish to
provide resources that explain and clarify the biblical and Jewish
roots of the Catholic faith so that our Messianic friends may receive
as their own the fullness of Yeshua's gifts to them, discover the
fullest expression of their Jewish faith in Him, and have the opportunity to come into full
unity and communion with His body, the Catholic Church, while remaining entirely faithful to their Jewish (and Messianic) roots.
Our Mission to Jews:
Our mission to the Jewish people is to provide resources to our Jewish
friends who are interested or curious in knowing more about why we
believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the promised Messiah of Israel foretold
by the prophets, and how the one God of Israel has revealed himself as
a communion of three persons; how his Body, the Catholic Church, is the
fulfillment of all that was promised to Israel; how Jews who find the
Messiah and enter the Church do not cease to be Jews or forsake the
traditions of their forefathers, but rather become “fulfilled Jews” who
receive forgiveness, eternal life, and are able to partake in God’s own nature (2
Pet 1:4).
Our Mission to Muslims:
God also lovingly calls Muslims to forgiveness, blessing, salvation and
eternal beatitude through the Messiah and his Church. An integral part
of this salvation is reconciliation with Israel, for “salvation is from
the Jews” (John 4:22).
Our Mission to All:
God calls all people to repentance, forgiveness, salvation, and to
God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus the Messiah, a salvation that
has sprouted from the olive tree of Israel and has become universalized
in the Catholic Church; in addition, our mission also aims to provide a balance to the widespread
anti-Israel bias found in much of the media and on the world scene
today.
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