The Intercessions for the Jewish People in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Roman Missal

ABSTRACT: The post-Vatican II Good Friday prayer for the Jews presents a potentially ambiguous vision of the necessity of Jewish conversion to Christianity. Using the intercessions for the Jewish people composed for the new Liturgy of the Hours to clarify the meaning of the Good Friday prayer, this article argues that these post-Vatican II liturgical texts should not be read merely to establish (dis)continuity with the conversionary thinking of their traditional antecedents. Instead, I suggest reading these prayers as a locus for the elaboration of the post- Nostra Aetate Catholic theology of Israel. Neither petitioning for the conversion-as-assimilation of the Jews nor embracing a dual-covenant theology, these prayers propose a new vision for the salvation of all Israel.