A REPLY TO LADY ABRAHAMS

https://fatherfeeney.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/the-point-june-1954/

We have lately received a note from a reader in London, a Jєωιѕн lady, who, by the grace of God and the politics of empire, now finds herself a Catholic and a member of the lesser peerage. Lady Abrahams, as our correspondent signs herself, spoke out against The Point ’s “virulent anti-Semitism.” Her Ladyship bade us be mindful of “the charity of Jesus Christ,” Whom she called, in a rhetorical finale meant to wither us, “the greatest Jєω of all time!”

Lady Abrahams’ evaluation of the adorable Word-made-flesh is, we cannot deny, arresting. We wonder just how such a judgment was arrived at, and we are tempted to envision her Ladyship lining up the contenders for her title of “greatest Jєω.” One by one, with much deliberation, Philo Judaeus, Rabbi Hillel, Benjamin Disraeli, and Bernard Baruch, all get eliminated — and Jesus of Nazareth wins the contest.

In justice to our Catholic reader, in England, we must make it clear that by no means does The Point find Lady Abrahams guilty of originality in this matter; we do not accuse English Catholics of harboring a new Judaeo-heresiarch in their midst. Her Ladyship is but following the fashion, so tragically unprotested of late, by which converts from Judaism try to give the impression that their previous attendance at the ѕуηαgσgυє is an enhancement to their current Christianity, since, after all, Christ was a Jєω, too.

Christ, indeed, was a Jєω. But anyone who is making an appeal to Christians to go all out for the Jєωs, would do well to leave Christ out of the argument. Christ was a Jєω Who claimed to be God, and thereby so outraged His fellow-Jєωs that they had Him put to death. Christ was the rightful King of the Jєωs, Who dared to defy the religious tyrannies of the Jєωιѕн Pharisees. Christ was the Divine Jєω Who got spat upon by His own people, and was labeled a “blasphemer” by the Jєωιѕн high priest.

In introducing the fact that Christ was a Jєω, Lady Abrahams’ chief purpose was, clearly, to imply that Christ was the kind of Jєω she knew, a fact which would bear with it such religious consequences as: going to Sabbath services and reading, not from the Old Testament, but from the тαℓмυd; scoffing at the idea of a Jєωιѕн virgin being the Mother of God; believing that the Messias-to-come was not a Divine Person, but an era of Jєωιѕн prosperity.

Without further illustration, we may conclude that, in the matter of belief, Christ was a Jєω of the kind that ceased to exist nineteen hundred years ago.

The unanswered question in all of the foregoing is, of course, how about Lady Abrahams’ indisputably Jєωιѕн blood? Doesn’t that give her, through race and ancestry, a privileged relationship to Our Lord?

The sacredness of Jєωιѕн blood throughout the Old Testament, and its jealous preservation, was for the one sublime purpose of keeping clear the human route by which the Word of God was to “become flesh and dwell amongst us.” That is why the Gospel writers take such care to present to us the genealogical blood-line of Our Lord — Saint Matthew recording it from Abraham down to Joseph, and Saint Luke retracing it from Bethlehem back to Eden. Once Good Friday has occurred, however, and Our Lord’s Precious Blood has been shed to its redemptive purpose, Jєωιѕн blood, as a Divine interest, is finished.

All that was promised to the House of David, all that was awaited from the tribe of Juda, is gathered in the Precious Eucharistic Blood on our Catholic altars. It is not Lady Abrahams’ ancestral connection with the Temple of Jerusalem that counts now with God. It is her Ladyship’s proximity to an altar rail in London, where she, and the gentiles kneeling beside her, become, through Holy Communion, the true fulfillment of Our Blessed Lady’s Magnificat prophecy, “To Abraham and to his seed forever.”

That was remarkable. Thanks for posting, rum.

 

I did a little digging on the "Lady Abrahams" The Point is addressing. It appears to be Lady Luisa Abrahams (1910-2007), who would have been in her early 40s when she wrote to The Point.

Spectator makes a correction to the claim that she participated in a fund-raising effort for the Yom Kippur war.

JєωιѕнCurrents lists her as one of the tribe.

A radio interview:

What first brought you to England?

"I came to England...actually England and golf saved my life, because I came to England in February '39 to play golf with Henry Cotton, who was the golf champion then, British golf champion, whom I met in '38 in Marianske lazne.
"He thought I was very talented and he invited me to come to England to play golf and I came and stayed with him when Hitler marched into Prague. Hitler killed my entire family but I stayed in England and therefore I survived."

Her husband, Sir Charles Abrahams is listed in Palmgrave's Dictionary of Anglo-Jєωιѕн History.

Everything I can dig up on her suggests she was a garden-variety fake convert.