Image source Sean M kelly
In the Italian town of Assisi on October 27th this year the Pope will hold a 'day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world', making a pilgrimage to the home of St. Francis and inviting fellow Christians from different denominations, representatives of the world's religious traditions and, in some sense, all men and women of good will, to join him.
In the Italian town of Assisi on October 27th this year the Pope will hold a 'day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world', making a pilgrimage to the home of St. Francis and inviting fellow Christians from different denominations, representatives of the world's religious traditions and, in some sense, all men and women of good will, to join him.
This Press release from The Vatican says :
"The Day will take as its theme: 'Pilgrims of truth, Pilgrims of peace'. Every human being is ultimately a pilgrim in search of truth and goodness. Believers too are constantly journeying towards God: hence the possibility, indeed the necessity, of speaking and entering into dialogue with everyone, believers and unbelievers alike, without sacrificing one's own identity or indulging in forms of syncretism."
"St. Francis of Assisi appeals to believers and nonbelievers alike because they long for a world where people see each other as brothers and sisters and where they recognize and respect creation as a gift to all, said the superior of the Franciscan convent in Assisi.
Father Giuseppe Piemontese, was one of eight religious leaders who spoke about "The Spirit of Assisi" during an interreligious meeting Sept. 11-13 in Munich.
sponsored by the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Rome-based lay movement.
Father Piemontese said the encounter will underline how important Blessed John Paul's gathering 25 years ago was for promoting dialogue and collaboration among religions, but it also will be a "reminder of what still remains to be done" to ensure true collaboration, respect and mutual support among peoples.
Holding the gathering in Assisi makes sense to people because St. Francis "incarnated those high aspects of humanity, simplicity, humility" that enable people to recognize each other as brothers and sisters and to see all of creation as the work of the same hands that made them, he said.
Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim of Aleppo, Syria, said marking the anniversary of the 1986 Assisi meeting "challenges us to reflect on these last 25 years. They were brimming with fruitful experiences" and helped religious leaders "strengthen their faith and enrich their enthusiasm and enhance their collective vision."
The Assisi gatherings, he said, are a reminder that "supplication to the creator" is something that unites all faiths.
"We are all exhausted by the needless and endless wars around us. If the aim of our prayers is peace, then it is the loftiest of goals that we are aiming for," he said.
Oded Wiener, director general of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, told those gathered in Munich, "The darkness and violence cannot be chased away with sticks (and) certainly not with knives and guns," but only with "the light of faith and the light of positive action on the part of religious leaders."
"This is, in fact, the spirit of Assisi," he said.
Image source
"Religious leaders and their views are of unique importance and strongly influence the interreligious mosaic," he said. "At many events, we have found that where politicians and statesmen have failed, religious leaders have succeeded in inflaming or calming down various groups."
Gijun Sugitani, a leader of Japan's Tendai Buddhist movement, said that after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended -- events that occurred after the first Assisi meeting -- "people expected the swift arrival of world peace."
Instead, he said, there have been new conflicts based on ethnicity, ideology and rage.
Image via WikipediaReturning to Assisi in October is important, he said, because "we have a responsibility to spread the spirit of Assisi that transcends differences between the ethnicities and religions and unites us all."
Mohammed Amine Smaili, a Moroccan professor of Muslim dogma and comparative religion, told the gathering that the 1986 Assisi meeting "marked a decisive and memorable about-face in our history" because the world's religions established a consensus that dialogue is the only way that humanity can understand itself.
He said the democratic reform movements sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East also have reflected the spirit of Assisi as they bring people of different religions together to promote greater freedoms and human rights.
Religious leaders, he said, "must speak of the holiness of peace and the curse of disrespect and hatred."
From The Vatican Press Office again :
"To the extent that the pilgrimage of truth is authentically lived, it opens the path to dialogue with the other, it excludes no-one and it commits everyone to be a builder of fraternity and peace.
These are the elements that the Holy Father wishes to place at the centre of reflection.
"For this reason, as well as representatives of Christian communities and of the principal religious traditions, some figures from the world of culture and science will be invited to share the journey - people who, while not professing to be religious, regard themselves as seekers of the truth and are conscious of a shared responsibility for the cause of justice and peace in this world of ours.
These are the elements that the Holy Father wishes to place at the centre of reflection.
"For this reason, as well as representatives of Christian communities and of the principal religious traditions, some figures from the world of culture and science will be invited to share the journey - people who, while not professing to be religious, regard themselves as seekers of the truth and are conscious of a shared responsibility for the cause of justice and peace in this world of ours.
Particular Churches and communities throughout the world are invited to organise similar times of prayer".
Unsurprisingly and sadly, in my opinion, there are some in the Catholic church that see this attempt to gather together as an abomination.
This link gives an example of their arguments and their way of thinking which I do NOT share but include here so that people can see what controversies may arise next month.
To my way of thinking this viewpoint betrays a type of faith that is mired in infantile insecurity which can so easily morph into hatred of others.
What I DO relate more to is explained by Fr Ron Rolheiser in this article ( see extract below), on a Cosmic Christ and another article here called Facing Otherness and Difference which tells us that welcoming what’s other and different is, in fact, a key biblical challenge.
We have a great tradition within which revelation from God is understood to come mostly through the stranger, the foreigner, the unexpected.
For this reason the scriptures insist on the importance of welcoming strangers.
For this reason the scriptures insist on the importance of welcoming strangers.
A Cosmic Christ
"The mystery of Christ is wider, deeper, and more encompassing than what can be seen simply within the visible life of Jesus and the visible history of the Christian churches. Granted, what we see visibly in the life of Jesus and the history of the Christian churches is something very precious and very privileged.
The Christian churches are (like Mary, the Mother of Jesus) the place where God visibly, concretely, tangibly, and historically enters this world. But, as scripture and Christian theology affirm, the mystery of Christ is more encompassing than what we can see visibly and historically.
It also includes what the Epistle to the Colossians teaches, namely, that physical creation itself was somehow created through Christ, that Christ is what holds it together, and that Christ is what gives it an eternal future. The mystery of Christ is not just about saving us, the people on this planet, it is also about saving the planet itself.
Incorporating this into our understanding has huge consequences both in how we understand our planet, earth, and how we understand other religions:
If all things were created through Christ and for Christ, then our planet, earth, and all of physical creation have value in themselves and not just in relation to us. The earth too is God's child, not self-conscious as we are, but with its own proper rights and right to respect.
Simply put, the earth is not just a stage for us to play on. It too is part of the mystery of Christ and the mystery of salvation. We must respect it for its own sake, and not just because our health depends upon its health.
The deep roots for any eco-theology lie deeper than in the practical concern for a continued supply of healthy air, water, and food. Nature too is inside the mystery of Christ.
Image source from Why So Many Religions if God Is One from here.
There are huge implications from this for how we view other religions. As Christians we must take seriously Jesus' teaching that Christ is the (only) way to salvation and that nobody goes to the Father except through Christ.
So where does that leave non-Christians and other persons of sincere heart, given that at any given time two-thirds of the world is not relating to the historical Jesus or the Christian churches?
Unless we understand the mystery of Christ as deeper and wider than what we can see visibly and historically, this quandary will invariably lead us to either abandon Jesus' teaching about being normative or lead us into an exclusivity that goes against God's universal will for salvation.
If, by the mystery of Christ, we mean only the visible Jesus and the visible church, then we are caught in a dilemma with no answer.
If, however, by the mystery of Christ, we also mean the mystery of God becoming incarnate inside of physical creation, beginning already in the original creation, continuing there as the soul that binds the whole of physical creation together, and being there as both the energy that lures creation towards its Creator and the consummation of that creation, then all things have to do with Christ, whether they realize it or not, and all authentic worship leads to the Father, whether we can see this or not.
In the words of Kenneth Cragg: It takes a whole world to understand a whole Christ."
Lastly I am thinking of Thomas Merton, who travelled to Asia to connect his own Catholic practices with Buddhist monks.
He died in that journey in 1968 in a tragic mishap with some electrical wiring in his hotel room in Bangkok.
Here are Merton’s lines from his now-famous talk that he prepared for monks in Asia:
“The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion.
It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.
Not that we discover a new unity.
We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one.
But we imagine that we are not.
And what we have to recover is our original unity.
What we have to be is what we are.”
The lives of St Francis and Thomas Merton were embedded in the lavishness and generosity of God -- they were aware that Christ threw the seed in every direction.
The God that I believe in is so rich in love and mercy that He can afford to be wasteful, over-generous, and non-discriminating beyond my wildest imagination.
Jesus invites us to trust God always.
That's surely that's what the invitation to Assisi is about: - to have a sense of God's abundance so as to risk always a bigger heart and generosity beyond the petty and instinctual fear that would have us believe that, because truth is scarce, we need to be more calculating and cynical about sharing the love that flows from it.
No comments:
Post a Comment