Tuesday, August 07, 2007
HIDDEN JEWS
Part of Athol Bloomer's "My Spiritual Journey" blog is a segment titled "Hidden Jews". That segment can be reached by clicking the "Hidden Jews" link on the right in his "Pontificates" blog. Here he speaks of the Way of Emmaus:
This preserved the mysticism of the early Jewish Christians secretly especially among the members of the Davidic Family. St Joseph of Arimathea had also bought the custom of the Virgin Mary of a band of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration adorers with him to Glastonbury (the Glas Isle). He established the first Grail chapel in the small wattle daub chapel at Glastonbury in Britain. His family and their descendants were to establish many such chapels in the British Isles and his son Nathan the Red established one at Tara in Ireland where the Stone of Destiny was guarded by the Ladies of the Stone. One of Nathan's sons went to Scotia (Scotland) and established a Grail chapel of Eucharistic Adoration at Camulod. (see A High History of the Holy Grail).
Most of the Royal and Noble families of Western Europe derive from Jewish origins from the Davidic line of the Exilarchs.
(At the bottom of the webpage is a link for "see My Journey" which will take you to Athol Bloomer's Spiritual Journey that I've blogged on previously.)
According to the segment quoted above, Eucharistic Adoration dates back to the time when Joseph of Arimathea was still living. Is that possible? At any rate, he mentions a Grail Chapel. He has mentioned this in other places. I find it significant given the importance of searching for the Holy Grail in THE DAVINCI CODE and its importance in Gnosticism. What role if any does the Holy Grail play in Judaism? Here is what the Jewish Encyclopedia offers:
According to the later Gospel of Nicodemus (xii.), Joseph was imprisoned by the Jews on Friday evening shortly before the Sabbath; but when they went to release him, he was gone, though the gate had been sealed and the key was in the possession of Caiaphas. Another legend sends him to Great Britain as one of the Seventy Apostles, to erect there the first oratory; and out of the staff which stuck in the ground as he stopped to rest himself on the hilltop there grew, they say, a miraculous thorn, said still to grow and bud every Christmas-Day. Out of these legends grew another, connecting Joseph of Arimathæa with the legend of the Holy Grail. The vessel from which Jesus had eaten at the Last Supper Joseph is said to have held in his hand when hetook down Jesus' body; and drops of the blood that was still running from his wounds fell into the vessel and endowed it with transcendent thaumaturgic properties. It sustained Joseph's life in prison during forty-two years and instructed him in heavenly knowledge.
My Jewish Learning speaks of the Grail only in connection with film and myth.
This search for the Holy Grail is not exactly a Catholic concept. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Holy Grail speaks of Joseph of Arimathea, too, but says that the Grail sustained him in prison for 42 years. There is no mention of any escape. Mostly the article talks about Grail romances and the story of King Arthur.
Yet Bloomer seems to be taking the Grail quite seriously.
Looking for a Way or School of Emmaus in Google didn't produce useful results except for a link to another Athol Bloomer blog. Here I found:
Rabbi Nehunia was a secret Eucharistic Adorer among the Rabbinic Jews in Israel. His Eucharistic school in Israel was called the Emmaus School which linked it to the account of the Breaking of the Bread on the way to Emmaus. The Jewish mystical book ‘Bahir’ has its origins in this school of Emmaus founded by R. Nehunia ben Ha Kanah. The Cleopas of the Emmaus account was an uncle of St Simon ha Kanah and the light called ‘Bahir’ is the light associated with mystic vision and the Resurrection, which Jesus revealed at the Breaking of the Bread on the Way to Emmaus. If one wishes to walk on the Way to Emmaus with Jesus, one must perceive Him in the Breaking of the Bread (Eucharist) and adore his Divine Presence.
Bloomer also tells us:
The Catholic mystics and saints reveal that Mary spent her time in the Cenacle in Eucharistic Adoration. Later in her house in Ephesus, according to the revelations of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, Mary also spent time in Eucharistic Adoration. She gathered the women of her household into a band of Eucharistic Adorers – they were later called the ladies of the Grail.
Apparently his source for this claim is the prophecy of Anne Catherine Emmerich, another visionary who was not elevated to sainthood. I don't know of any other Catholic prophecy that speaks of Eucharistic Adoration, which is not to say there are none, but in any case, prophecy is not to be taken at the level of Scripture and Tradition even if it has Church approval.
The Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Perpetual Adoration states the following:
No trace of the existence of any such extra-liturgical cultus of the Blessed Sacrament can be found in the records of the early Church. Christian Lupus, indeed, argues that in the days of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine it was customary for the neophytes to adore, for eight days following their baptism, the Blessed Sacrament exposed, but no sound proof is adduced. It first appears in the later Middle Ages, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. It certainly may be conjectured that such adoration was really connoted by the fact of reservation in the early Church, especially in view of the evident desire to have the Eucharist represent the unity and continuity of the Church, as it is unlikely that there should not be some continuation of the adoration evidently given to the Host at the Synaxis. But such conjecture cannot be insisted upon...
The entry says further:
Exposition and consequently adoration became comparatively general only in the fifteenth century.
Once again it appears that Athol Bloomer's theology is uniquely his own and not reflective of the theology of Roman Catholicism.
