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As Christmas draws near, the Church invites us not only to gaze towards Bethlehem, but also to look back - to remember the people, the stories, and the covenant into which Jesus was born...
Christ didn’t arrive in a cultural or social vacuum. He came as a Hebrew, as the fulfilment of promises made to Israel - and who better to help us appreciate that heritage more than Dr Angela Costley, Oscott’s Lecturer in Wisdom, the Prophets, and New Testament Greek and the recent author and co-editor of a new book exploring the Hebrew Catholic identity (more on that below).
This Advent, she offers a gentle reminder: to understand Christ, we must understand the story He chose to enter.
Dr Costley lights up when she speaks about the Old Testament. “I have a Jewish background,” she says, “and as a Catholic I’m also very excited to see how the Old Testament points to the New Testament, and how it reaches fulfilment in Christ.”
Her teaching often traces this movement: watching how the wisdom, poetry, and prophecy of Israel gradually prepare the world for the coming of Jesus.
“It’s wonderful to see how God has been so gentle with us in revealing Himself,” she says. “All through the Old Testament, you can see hints of what’s to come.”
In Advent, when the Church asks us to wait, listen, and expect, this is a particularly rich lens: Christ is the answer to a longing that stretches back through centuries of covenant love.
Dr Costley describes herself as a Hebrew Catholic, someone who sees in the Scriptures both her heritage and her faith fulfilled.
“When I look at the Old Testament and see how it’s fulfilled in Christ,” she explains, “sometimes the smallest detail just lights up. You suddenly see who it’s pointing to.”
This deep relationship between Israel’s story and the Church’s identity is also at the heart of her new book, From Sinai to Rome: Jewish Identity in the Catholic Church (Angela Costley, Gavin D'Costa, Ignatius Press).
The book explores whether Jewish identity can be lived faithfully within the Catholic Church, tracing how Israel’s covenantal story is fulfilled - not erased - in Christ. Bringing together leading theologians, it offers a rigorous, hopeful vision of Hebrew Catholicism rooted in the Church’s ancient tradition.
For Advent readers, this casts a beautiful light on the season: Bethlehem is not the beginning of God’s plan, but its flowering. The God who formed a people at Sinai is the same God who takes flesh among them.
As we prepare for Christmas, Dr Costley’s insights offer a simple but profound encouragement: rediscover the Jewish roots of our faith, not as an academic exercise, but as a way of recognising God’s unbreakable faithfulness.
The Child we welcome at Christmas is the fulfilment of Israel’s hope: the Messiah promised, the Light long foretold, the One through whom all nations are brought into the family of God.
Or, as Dr Costley beautifully puts it: “Sometimes you read a line of Scripture and suddenly - there He is. Everything points to Him.”
This Advent, may we read with that same expectancy.
You can watch the Ignatius Press interview with Dr Costley with her co-editor Dr D'Costa here. The book From Sinai to Rome can be purchased from Ignatius Press here.