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JESUS IS THE MESSIAH THE STORY OF A JEWISH CONVERT
Martyn, a young man from an Orthodox Jewish background, shares his personal testimony and how the Holy Spirit led him to becoming a Catholic.
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I was born into an Orthodox Jewish family and went through all the usual rites of passage, being circumcised when I was 8 days old. When I was 13 I had my Bar Mitzhva, which is when a Jewish male becomes an adult in the eyes of the community. There is a special ceremony when your read a piece of scripture which is relevant to your date of birth and then the Rabbi lays hands on you and prays Aaron's prayer of priestly blessing. This comes from Numbers 6 "May the Lord bless you and protect you and may he cause his face to shine on you and may he be gracious to you and grant you his peace." I grew up as a practising Jew, but looking back I realise I didn't have a personal relationship with God as I now understand it to be, and my faith wasn't as real as it is now. Praying for Liverpool football team to win was about the extent of my prayers. I would go to the synagogue regularly, however, with my grandfather, who was a very devout Jew and a great inspiration. When I was 18 I went to college to study psychology and I ended up sharing a house with a group of students, one of whom, Emma, was a very devout Catholic. From the first moment that I met her there was something that touched me about the way she was as a person. She had such joy and love. As she was also very attractive I was very keen to get to know her better. Over the next few months we struck up a strong friendship and we would talk about and share our different faiths. In particular, we would celebrate the arrival of the Jewish Sabbath each Friday evening. "First time in the RC Church" One weekend she invited me back to her parish community in Manchester. This was St John the Baptist in Timperley. It was the first time I had ever set foot in a Roman Catholic Church. The first thing that amazed me was the presence of the tabernacle light. In the Jewish synagogue we also have a candle representing the presence of God in the sacred word of the Torah. That really shocked me. I thought they have taken that from the Jewish people! Although I didn't understand what was happening during Mass I had a deep sense of the presence of the Lord in my heart. It by-passed my head and went straight to my heart. After Mass I cried like I had never cried before. They were tears of joy. When I spoke to different members of the parish community, I was also very impressed by them and their sincerity, love and non-judgemental approach to me. Over the next few months I began to get more interested in knowing more and I asked lots of questions. I read a book by Helen Shapiro, who was also a Jew, but who had come to recognise Jesus as the Messiah. She raised and answered so many of the questions I too had about the Christian faith. It was one evening some time later when Emma and I were alone in the house. I suddenly thought I heard Emma calling me. As I approached her room I could hear her speaking in Hebrew, the Jewish language of prayer. I was very shocked as I didn't think she could speak Hebrew. She was even more surprised when I told her I understood what she was saying, as she had been praying in tongues. I told her that the word she was saying was "Kidshanu" which is in almost every single Jewish prayer and it means "sanctify us". The fact that Emma was as shocked as me made me realise that this was a supernatural experience and it touched us both very deeply. Emma also told me about Our Lady and that she was supposed to be appearing in Medjugorje. I was intrigued and started reading up about it and the messages and about the power of prayer to bring peace to the world. As time went on I started going to Mass and the prayer group that Emma started. "Sense of sinfulness and need of a Saviour" One weekend we both went on a retreat with Fr Pat Deegan. When I went to bed that night I had a great sense of my own sinfulness and my need for a saviour and I asked Our Lady's intercession to show me if Jesus was the Messiah. Very gradually God opened my heart to accept that this was the truth and that Jesus is truly the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish people and the saviour of all of humanity. Three years had passed by now and after college I began a teacher training course in the Midlands. Here I decided to join the RCIA course. I had missed the first two sessions so it was providential that the first session that I was able to attend was all about the Jewishness of Jesus. This seemed like confirmation of my decision and I felt at home straight away. However I didn't feel quite ready to be baptised at the Easter vigil, as I still hadn't told my parents about my spiritual journey and I felt I needed to do this in a loving way. Later that year I went to Medjugorje and while I was there I asked advice from a priest. He advised me to offer everything up in prayer and trust in the Lord's timing as to when would be the best time to be received into the Church. When I returned to England I felt called to be baptised, confirmed and to receive my First Holy communion, so I would have the sacramental strength to share with my family about my call to the Catholic faith. I decided to be received into the Church on the next major feast of Our Lady, in thanksgiving for Her motherly intercession, which happened to be the 1st January 1994. I will always remember how appropriate the words of the liturgy that day were for me. As it was a Solemn feast day in honour of Our Lady, the readings were particularly related to her and her role in salvation history. The first reading was Aaron's Blessing from the Book of Numbers "May the Lord Bless you and protect you…"- exactly the same scripture that the Rabbi had prayed over me ten year previous. And the gospel reading was the circumcision of Jesus. It soon dawned on me very clearly that it was not I who had chosen this day to become a Catholic but rather it was God's decision. The priest began the Mass "Son of Abraham, come into the Church" and I was baptised with water from the river Jordan in the Holy Land. It was a most blessed and moving day. My only regret was that I hadn't been able to share this with my family. As time passed by, it was amazing how the scriptures kept speaking to me during the Mass and how alive and active the Word of God truly is. "What do I say to my parents?" Dreading how I was going to tell them and how they would receive the news, I tried to find a suitable moment to explain to my parents the decisions that I had made. I was back home visiting them during the summer and this was the first time that I was able to receive Holy Communion in my home city. The Gospel that day was Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist when he taught the Jews that "He is the bread come down from heaven, not like the bread that your ancestors ate." This reading touched me so deeply and I experienced a tremendous peace in my heart. When I arrived at my parent's home, they told me they were aware that there was something going on in my life that I was hiding from them. "Was I doing drugs, had I killed someone or was I a homosexual?" they asked, assuring me that whatever I had done they would stick by me. This gave me the opening to tell them what had happened and as I remembered the Gospel reading that I had heard earlier that morning, a great peace overcame me. Over the next two hours, I shared with them all that Jesus had been doing in my life over the last three years. Although there was a lot of pain, anger and hurt, there was an immense amount of love too from my parents who assured me they would always love me whatever I did. Although my immediate family know about my conversion, it is not common knowledge in the local Jewish community, as it would bring shame on them, which I don't want. But I do ask for people's prayers for them and the Jewish people in general as they are, as our great Pope John Paul II described, "our elder brothers in faith." They have many insights I believe that the Christian Church could benefit from, particularly their devotion to the Sacred Word of God. I used to be quite shocked in the beginning, for example, at the casual way that bibles would be left around on the floor. In the Jewish faith, no one would ever dream of leaving the Sacred Word of God on the floor. "Links between Jewish faith and Catholicism" As time has gone on, I have been amazed at the links between the Jewish faith and Catholicism. As a child, my favourite feast was the Passover. As I learned more about the sacrifice of the Mass it became very clear that Jesus is the prophetic fulfillment of the Passover lamb. There is also the realisation in the Old Testament about the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ark was held the Ten Commandments (the Word of God), the Manna (the sacred bread), and Aaron's priestly staff. In the tabernacle of every Catholic Church we have Jesus who is the bread from heaven, the Word of God and the eternal high priest. Because of my heritage I have become very interested in all these links and have been greatly helped in my understanding by the writing of people such as Scott Hahn and Frances Hogan, two scripture teachers. I think my parents thought I had been brainwashed because of my friendship with Emma, whom I am still very close friends with. It was an adult decision, however, that I made on my own accord, although God did use Emma as part of that plan. Since 1994 I have been involved with Youth 2000 which has been a great part of my formation and for the last few years I have been on their leadership team. From our local Youth 2000 prayer group in the Midlands, we have had 4 marriages and 3 vocations to the religious life and the priesthood. This I feel is a real sign of God's blessing on us and our desire to follow him wholeheartedly - in spite of our weakness and sinfulness.
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