We celebrate some Jewish Holidays.
In fact, back home we had a family that would come to our Christmas celebration and would send us Latkas for Hanukkah.
The first time the youngest daughter walked into my sister's house for Christmas, she said, “It's just like the Soap Operas!”
Those were the days......
The first time the youngest daughter walked into my sister's house for Christmas, she said, “It's just like the Soap Operas!”
Those were the days......
All well and good, but missing my point.
Historically the Catholic Church abolished Jewish holidays (since they had been "fulfilled" and were no longer necessary) but pursued the opposite tactic, inculturation, with regard to pagan holidays.
I don't want to get in a big argument but please try to think of it this way: the Catholic Church made lupercalia (valentine's day), pomonalia/samhain (halloween), and s*t*rnalia/sol invictus (chr*stmas) into into chr*stian holidays. It did not do this with Ro'sh HaShanah, the anniversary of the day Adam and Eve were created.
I'm asking a very simple question: why were pagan and Jewish holidays treated so differently by the ancient church? Why were pagan holidays chr*stianized while Jewish ones were considered obsolete and often proscribed as "judaizing?"
I am afraid this whole question ties in with an issue that Catholics don't seem to be able to understand. Anyone who can defend pagan holidays can defend Jewish ones. Anyone who can say "faith without works is dead" can acknowledge the validity of Torah observance.
Catholics/Orthodox/etc. simply do not seem to understand the simple Biblical sentimentalism of radical Protestants--that if there are valid rituals or holidays they should be Biblical Jewish ones, not extra-Biblical pagan ones; and if the Jewish rituals and holidays of the Bible are of no more use, then neither is any other kind of ritual or holiday.
In defending Catholic rituals and holidays Catholics must resort to using the same apologetics Judaism uses with regard to chr*stianity as a whole. In attacking Jewish rituals and holidays as obsolete they engage in an early (and inconsistent) form of Protestant antinomianism.
Does no one here at least understand the point I'm trying to make?