Pope and Muslim cleric pray
in historic mosque in Turkey
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"We are co-pilgrims"
"Recently a friend of mine wrote to me: These days I frequently cycle to the mosque to hear a lecture on the Qur'an delivered in Urdu. The speaker makes the Qur'an come alive for his audience. Even as a Christian, I feel the Qur'an reaches out to me and captivates me by its beauty. As I sit among the Muslims on the floor of the mosque, I feel no dividing wall between us. The message of the Qur'an touches each one of us in a personal way. The Muslims welcome me and understand my interest in the Qur'an. They allow me to be a Christian in their midst. The Qur'an is a profound bond between us. I tell my Muslim friends I am a Christian who wants to hear the spiritual message of the Qur'an from a Muslim teacher. I do not enter into doctrinal or theological discussions. I am a humble pilgrim seeking spiritual nourishment from a faith-tradition that stems from Abraham, like my own. I seem to be at the beginning of a new stage in my Inter-Faith journey.
I felt this sharing captures two important elements for us in our dialogue with friends from different religious traditions. They are rootedness and openness: rootedness in one's own tradition and openness to the other. The image which always comes to me is of a tree. The more deeply rooted a tree the more healthily its branches reach out into new horizons. Rootedness in one's own religious traditions and its sources provides nourishment and inspiration to reach out to the other and find in the other a co-pilgrim.
Being a co-pilgrim with others does not relativise one's faith vis-à-vis with the other. I take inspiration from one of the documents of the Catholic Church on Relationship with other Religions. It affirmed that the Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in the world religions. The Catholic Church affirmation of the values present in the different religious traditions is the mark of openness towards other religious traditions. The openness of the Council is rooted in the Christ's work of reconciliation. As ministers of reconciliation each Christian values the deep longing of Buddhists and Hindus for total liberation from the transitoriness of life and the Muslim commitment to one God who is living and enduring. As servants of reconciliation each Christian believer call upon his/her brothers and sisters to forget the past and strive sincerely for mutual understanding. The fruit of openness is mutual understanding. I deeply believe that the followers of every religious tradition draw from their inner sources to build up mutual understanding, peace and harmony. In Asia today, we cannot think of dialogue away from the actual conditions of our peoples. Asian theologians pointedly tell us that poverty, cultures and religions mark our Asianness. Communalism, casteism, hunger deaths, illiteracy, intolerance, divisive ideologies, refugees, violence against women and children disfigure our Asian sensitivities, challenge us and shape our onward journey. As co-pilgrims we come together to draw from our inner resources and from our togetherness strength and resolve to struggle for justice and peace among all peoples. We generate synergy from our togetherness to strive for peace that is founded on Justice. In this context, I think in order to carry forward dialogue we need to ask ourselves how far can a religion be theologically reshaped in the encounter with the other, remaining both meaningful for its adherents and open to other believers? And what should be the social impact of these new relations, and how, working together, the different religious traditions can have real impact in the concrete life of the people?"
By
Victor Edwin SJ
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vmalpan@gmail.com
.JPG)