Katnut d'Katnut

The restrainer or katechon is the one who holds back the open reign of the mystery of iniquity or Antichrist. Many Fathers of the Church believed that this Katechon was the Roman Empire or the Roman Emperor. Many Russian Orthodox Christians believed the Czars of Russia and in particular the last Czar Nicholas II was the katechon of their times. It would seem that the original katechon referred to by St Paul was the Roman Emperor Claudius. It was only after his murder in 54 AD that the Antichrist Nero rose to power. It was only after the murder of Czar Nicholas II that the Antichrist Stalin rose to power. It was only after the katechon Emperor Charles I (Karl) of Austria died that the Antichrist Hitler rose to power. 

Some have said that Donald Trump may have been a katechon.

Rabbi Meir and his wife Bruriah

Who was Rabbi Meir who lived three generations after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD? He was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva and a Tannaim. It has long been hidden that this great light was a British Jew who was connected to the great Davidic status (Nesiim) Romano-Jewish families. It has been veiled that they were an influential force in both the Early Church and the post-Temple version of Rabbinic Judaism.

Claudia and Rufus Pudens

After the events of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Messiah Jesus, St Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate, embraced the Faith and shared it with her sister Pomponia Graecina when she returned to Rome. The accusations against Pomponia by which she was cleared by her husband and close relatives has always been believed to refer to her Christian faith.

Today we have been having an interesting conversation on the Association of Hebrew Catholics page on facebook. This discussion is with two Hebrew Catholics, Dave and myself (Br Gilbert) and Jason who is a matrilineal Jew who is studying to become a Catholic. We are discussing the perennial question of Jewish Identity.

This discussion began when Jason posted a link to an article about Jon Ossof who had patrilinleal Jewish ancestry and not maternal.

There is an increased attack on apparitions from within the Church. We saw Bishops in America deny the supernatural character of the Apparitions of Our Lady of America and now we see them turning on the Apparitions of Our Lady of All Nations. These were apparitions declared to be supernatural and worthy of belief by the past Bishop in 2002 and were accepted as such for nearly 20 years and suddenly someone in the Vatican pulls out a 1974 letter against it that no one knew about before.

I have been reading Leora Batnizky's article about Levinas and Wyschogrod called "Jesus in Jewish Modern Thought" (2012). She discusses how both these modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers use the Christian idea of Incarnation in their religious thought. Levinas proposes a kind of Jewish Incarnational understanding of philosophy in which he sees the embodiment of the presence of God in the other person (an ethical focus).