Interfaith Relations
Dominican Centre for Interfaith Ministry, Education and Research (CIMER)
GROWING THROUGH INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONSHIPS
Sr Trish OP
Pope Francis, in The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium), explains that “The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs” (n 254).
As Christians and as Catholics we share a common scriptural heritage with our Jewish sisters and brothers, and so much of our liturgical life and our everyday values and practices are drawn from this heritage.
Through contact with many Muslims in daily life and in interfaith relations I have also come to appreciate Islam both as a religion and as a way of life. Despite some important areas of difference, Muslims and Christians have much in common with each other, including our shared humanity. Together with Judaism and Christianity, Islam is one of the three great monotheistic faiths of the world. Muslims and Christians worship the same one God, whom Muslims address as “Allah” using the Arabic word for God.
Muslims and Jews, with their practices of ritual prayer and fasting, are also a challenge to Christians who may have “forgotten” these aspects of their own religious tradition. Some of the physical actions that accompany Muslim prayer such as bowing and prostrating were also common among Christians and are still preserved in the prayer of some ancient Christian traditions e.g. the prayer of Assyrian Christians in Southeast Turkey and the nine ways of prayer of St Dominic.
The practice of fasting, related to Jewish holy days and in the Muslim month of Ramadan, is also a spiritual tradition that Christians familiar with the liturgical season of Lent can resonate with. For Jews and Muslims as well as Christians, a time of fasting is a way of practicing self-discipline and of renewing oneself spiritually. It is a time when one gives special attention to one’s relationship with God and with others. This can alert us to the importance of having some structures in our lives which call us to prayer and some regular practices which nurture our spirituality.
Perhaps there is a desire today, with a growing awareness of the holistic nature of personal spiritual development, to recover some of these more concrete and physical expressions of faith. Among many Christians, for whom these may not have been part of their early upbringing, there seems to be a renewed interest in aids to prayer such as prayer beads, physical movement in prayer, and pilgrimage. We have much to gain by being open to learn from the spiritual and cultural heritage brought to us by our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers, and also from people of other religious traditions.
As Pope Francis says in “Fratelli Tutti” (On Fraternity and Social Friendship): “The Church esteems the ways in which God works in other religions, and rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions…..For us the wellspring of human dignity and fraternity is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From it, there arises, for Christian thought and for the action of the Church, the primacy given to relationship, to the encounter with the sacred mystery of the other, to universal communion with the entire human family, as a vocation of all” (n 277).
“Dialogue and Proclamation”: 30 Year Anniversary Webinar – 19 May 2021
Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue – https://new.pcinterreligious.org/dp-webinar
An Australian multi-faith delegation contributes to a Regional Interfaith Dialogue held in Indonesia
Catholic and Muslim pilgrims from Australia are welcomed in Rome at the offices of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
Interfaith representatives in Sydney meet regularly in the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Jews and Muslims (ANDCJM)
During Ramadan, Christians join Muslims breaking their fast at an Iftar Dinner
Delegates at the International Dialogue for Peace and Cooperation in Semarang Indonesia