Summary
One of the primary errors of the Jewish People is the failure to discern between mere discipline versus doctrine, between what is merely external and what is internal, which is the only thing that really matters. In the Old Testament, Pork was absolutely forbidden--on any day or any time. But it was just a discipline. In the end, all meat is clean and all meat is unclean. It is unclean because all animals stink and poop and pee wherever they please. But all meat is also intrinsically clean, since there is nothing wrong, in and of itself, with eating any kind of animal flesh. God called pork unclean in the Old Law only as a PICTURE of things that are TRULY unclean: violation of the principles of the Decalogue: fornication, drunkenness, gluttony, contraception, lust, revelry...
In the New Testament, Heaven respects the Bishops’ disciplines. MUST we fast to get to heaven? In general, YES. “Except ye do penance, ye shall all perish!” One will never emerge from the purgative way, which is itself essential for the life of the saint, without some mortification of the flesh. But HOW and WHEN must we fast? Reality is, when it is reasonable to do so, we can fast whenever we want. BUT TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE A BARE MINIMUM, the Church imposes the baby steps at various intervals. Is it INTRINSICALLY immoral to eat beef and pork? Absolutely not. If it were, we would NEVER be able to eat pork or beef, on ANY day, let alone Friday. But IF God says on such and such a day, you shall not eat meat, then we are obliged by heaven and discipline.
I suggest that at the end of time, God shall use a wicked secular Jew as Antichrist to open the eyes of the Jews in an unbelievable fulfillment of Maccabees: Peter, to instigate the conversion of the Jews, shall change the Friday penance to a veritable joke: all Catholics on Friday shall NOT be able to partake of anything that was CLEAN in the Old Law, and ONLY what was UNCLEAN. So the Antichrist, on Fridays, will lay out on a table many clean foods and tell the Catholics eat or be tortured, so that after refusing them all, they are killed. But on all OTHER days, since Catholics may eat and drink as they please, Antichrist shall torture based on forcing them to deny dogmas, acts that are intrinsically unclean. And if the Jews can figure out this little puzzle, they will have solved the mystery of the world in which God shall lead a beginning People to be the FIRST to accept ANY truth from God but who, also, shall be the LAST to accept it in FULL, and a second People to be the LAST to accept ANY truth from God but the FIRST to accept it in FULL!
Prerequisite Summary: Why Will the Jews Convert? A Profound Thesis
Summary: Why Will the Jews Convert? A Profound Thesis
A case can be made that the Three Stages, or Ways, of the saints, the purgative, the illuminative and unitive ways, are in fact just a microcosmic example of the historical way of an entire People, hence, of Old and New. In other words, it can be shown that if the mystics' scenario is correct of what remains for Church history (a conditional minor tribulation, followed by a glorious renewal of Catholic Christendom, an age of peace, and finally, the Great Apostasy and Great Tribulation of Public Revelation), both Peoples of Old and New, respectively, journey a macro form of the ways of the saint in the major spiritual phases of their history, from inception to the respective Coming of Christ.
Now, the central error of the Jewish people is that they fail to recognize that all that truly matters are the things of the heart, of inner renewal. Hence, their conversion hinges on the ability to recognize that only inner renewal matters, and not merely external realities. Yet, we have just seen that the process of inner renewal is completely journeyed in their major history. In other words: The very key to their eyes being opened is present in their overall, three-stage historical journey with God! Now, Christ fulfilled in His Flesh their entire journey: threes! For three days and three nights, Jesus lingered in the earth before rising. On the third day He arose from the dead, in accordance with the Scriptures. Christ fell three times in the way of the cross. Christ progressively prayed three times in the Garden to accept the Will of His Father for the Passion. Three times, Peter denied Christ, and three times He was reconciled (Peter do you love me.) Three times, Jesus spoke to Mary Magdelene at the tomb to open her eyes. For three days and three nights, Mother Mary and St Joseph looked for the Christ before finding Him in the Temple.
All these types filled up the three phases of the Jewish People, yet they have not believed. Hence, what other option is there (No other sign shall be given unto this generation except the sign of Jonas), except that what will enable the Jews to convert is to see the same three stage process filled up in the flesh of the Body of Christ, His Church. Hence, as the Church herself journeys the same three-fold path of renewal, fulfilling the the same OT history of the Jews in a spiritual sense, they shall progressively recognize this renewal, so that, in the climax of NT Antichrist, fulfilling Antiochus, the OT Antichrist of the Maccabean struggle, the Jewish People shall exclaim with St Mary Magdalene, Rabboni, which means, Teacher!
Fish, Pork, Abstinence, Maccabees, the Antichrist, and the Jewish Conversion
To restate, we see that as the Church enters the final age of her history, the Great Apostasy and NT Antichrist, it is this final stage of fulfillment of Jewish History that opens the eyes of the Jews to see that the Gentiles and Catholic Church will have arrived at the very same point that the Jews were, spiritually speaking, just before the Messiah came the first time.
And how? Well, simple. In Maccabbees, the final history of the Jews, a blasphemous Gentile attempted to force apostasy on the Jews or else face brutal torture and death. Further, this horrendous ruler, Antiochus, was called Epiphanies because He claimed deity.
Now consider the plight of the Catholic Church just prior to Christ's Second Coming. Firstly, we can note that some Fathers foresee the NT Antichrist as being himself a secular Jew. Consider, therefore, assuming such a scenario, how the tables are turned: A merely Secular Jew attempting to impose on a minority of Gentiles apostasy from the New Covenant [Catholicism] or else face torture and death.
From this scenario, I pose a great Divine Joke that the Successor of St. Peter shall play, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to hasten in the conversion of the most stubborn people on earth, the Jews.
Now, we must recall that on many occasions in Maccabbees, the OT Antichrist Antiochus would use the temptation of pork , a forbidden meat to the Jews, to seduce apostasy, in that, on one occasion, Antiochus horrifically tortured seven brothers before their mother because they refused to partake of the forbidden meat.
Now, here, of course, is the irony, and one of the central questions the Jews do not understand: God's division of animals into clean and unclean was merely ceremonial and a primary aspect of God using material things to foreshadow the spiritual. For in the future Acts of the Apostles, Christ appears to St. Peter in a vision with many "unclean" [by the Old, Mosaic Law] animals, and is commanded to kill and eat. Peter exclaims, "But, Lord, these are unclean." Christ responds, "There is nothing unclean that I have not declared unclean." The connotation is that, in the end, no one animal on earth is any more unclean than another, INTRINSICALLY. What truly matters, as was intended to be revealed in the New, is the inner heart of a man. For, in the end, it is not those who are physically clean who shall enter heaven, but only those who are spiritually clean, in the state of love.
Hence, as the apostle repeatedly points out, it is a faith that loves God in the heart that truly matters, and not mere external rituals.
For this reason, can we not foresee the Papacy to give a final revelation to the Jews, a little puzzle to figure out: He shall change (because it is discipline, which is mutable) the Friday penance, so that Catholics can ONLY eat PORK on Friday, and no OTHER meat.
Now think of the humor of this, foreseeing the reaction of the NT Antichrist, a wicked secular Jew who understands the New Covenant but rejects it for fruitless rituals. He, therefore, shall persecute the Christians on Friday as follows:
He shall lay out before the Catholic to be tortured all the meats of all CLEAN species in the Old Law, and command the Christian, one by one, to eat them. At each step, if the Catholic refuses, the men of antichrist shall exercise a brutal torture. And having refused to consume all of them, the Catholic will be killed.
Of course, since Catholics can partake of ANY meat on any other day, the Antichrist will torture only according to dogma on the other days apart from Friday, going down all dogmatic declarations of the Church with respective tortures, just as he does with the meats on Friday.
The Jew will, of course, consider this scenario with utter amazement. He says to himself:
"See these Gentiles, on Fridays, the ruler of this world does not ask them to eat anything unclean, and yet they refuse to the consequence of horrible torture. And yet, if they were asked to eat the supremely unclean meat, they would gladly. This is absurd.
"And even beyond this, this is only FRIDAYS, which is no special day. Whereas on other days, he eats as he pleases, clean and unclean alike. Who are these hypocrites? And yet, on all other days, they pass through sufferings incomprehensible, and over what, matters of SPIRITUAL doctrine!?"
And if the Jews can sort out this little puzzle, they will have solved the mystery of the world that God would make and redeem, leading a first group into some revelation, but who shall accept the fullness of such only as last, and a last group into some revelation, but the first to take it all in fullness!