Hope for the Pope: Catholic-Muslim relations in the new pontificate

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

Note: I’m very honored to host my first guest on the blog: Fr. Michael Calabria, a Franciscan friar.  Since we met in the fall, when he came to Georgetown to work on his doctoral dissertation in Qur’anic studies, I’ve considered him a good friend and the “Franciscan friar version of myself.” 

The icon was painted by Franciscan friar, Robert Lentz.

The icon was painted by Franciscan friar, Robert Lentz.

We wrote the following piece together, and shopped it around at a few news outlets. None of them decided to take it–there was too much already written on the topic–so we decided to publish it here.

It seems appropriate to post this piece, today, on Holy Thursday, when Pope Francis washed the feet of a female, Muslim inmate at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in Rome.

by Fr. Michael Calabria, OFM, and Jordan Denari

In the summer of 1219, an itinerant preacher in a patched brown robe crossed the Nile River with a companion to reach the camp of the Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. While Crusader commanders readied their weapons, he announced the peace of Christ in way that seems to have pleased and impressed his Muslim host. In time, this preacher became a much loved saint: Francis of Assisi.

Though most are familiar with Francis’ commitment to evangelical poverty and his sense of brotherhood with all of creation, few are aware of St. Francis’ simple yet dramatic gesture of friendship towards the Muslim ruler of Egypt. Given the recent flurry of talk about St. Francis due to the Pope’s chosen name and his references to Francis, we hope to shed some light on this lesser-known aspect of Francis’ ministry, which was a natural extension of his service to all people and his love of all creation.

We—a Franciscan priest and a Catholic student educated by the Jesuits— hope that Francis’ example of dialogue with Muslims will shape the attitude and activities of the new pontiff.

Francis of Assisi’s forgotten ministry

In recent years, scholars, examining the writings of Francis following his encounter with the Sultan, have discerned elements that are suggestive of his experience of Islam while in Egypt. Shortly after his return to Italy in the summer of 1220, Francis wrote a Letter to the Rulers of the Peoples in which he enjoined all sovereigns to have an announcement of some kind made every evening that would call people to give praise and thanksgiving to God. Coming so soon after his time in Egypt, it seems likely that Francis was recalling the Muslim adhaan, or call to prayer. Later in 1224, when Francis was in a time of intense meditation on Mt. La Verna, he wrote a prayer known as The Praises of God. To many, Francis’ simple invocations to God as love, charity, wisdom, joy, etc. are reminiscent of the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God  from the Islamic tradition.

That Francis, a devout Christian, might adapt and incorporate Muslim prayer forms into his own is not surprising, as Francis attributed all that is good not to any one people, but to God, the source of all that is good. Francis may have come to the encounter with al-Kamil with the intent of conversion, but he left with something unexpected: an admiration for the frequency and fervency of Muslim prayer.

Francis’ belief that God can be found in all people and “in all things” was later echoed by the founder of the Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius, whose spirituality enlivens Jesuit institutions like Georgetown University where we study. Like Franciscan friars, Jesuits find their calling on the “frontiers,” often encountering people of other creeds and cultures–and encountering God in them. The message of Francis and Ignatius proved foundational at the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council (1962-65), particularly in the Church’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) which speaks of the “rays of Truth” reflected by other faith traditions.

Living Francis’ message

Francis’ example and Church teaching tell us that we can still be true to our own Christian faith–and actually deepen it– while honoring and drawing from the truth, wisdom and beauty  found in other religions.

Francis and al-Kamil

Francis and al-Kamil

We both take this message to heart, and feel our Christian faith deepened when we engage in Muslim prayer. We can be spotted in the congregation at Muslim Friday prayers on campus at Georgetown University–Fr. Michael in his brown habit and Jordan with her hair covered by a scarf. Fr. Michael prays on an Islamic prayer rug when the adhaan emanating from from his laptop calls him to prayer. Jordan became more committed to her prayer life as a Catholic, thanks to her Muslim friends on campus; she now goes to nightly Mass and often prays the Liturgy of the Hours.

We also look to Francis for an example of how to engage in dialogue today, in the midst of the hateful rhetoric and outright violence that often characterize interactions between Christians and Muslims. While Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade to eradicate Islam in the Holy Land, Francis chose the unpopular and dangerous path of compassion and peace, even though the cardinal leading the crusade opposed his mission. Francis lived dialogue; he didn’t just talk it.  He formed a relationship – perhaps even a friendship – with the Sultan, allowing the time he spent with the Muslim leader to change him for the better.

It is this example of lived dialogue that we try to emulate in the midst of the hateful rhetoric and violence that often characterize Muslim-Christian interactions . Fr. Michael has returned frequently to the land where Francis walked with Sultan, striving to serve as a bridge between Catholic and Muslim communities both in Egypt and in the US. Having spent time abroad in the Middle Eastern country which bears her name, Jordan hopes to return there after graduation to conduct research about the challenges of Muslim-Christian relations. Now, we are working together on campus on a series of dialogues that bring Muslim and Catholic students together to discuss topics like prayer, fasting, and saints.

Hope for the Pope

While Cardinal Bergoglio does not have academic expertise in Catholic-Muslim dialogue as did some of the other papabiles, like Cardinal Angelo Scola, we were heartened by the Pope’s decision to take the name, Francis. In an address on the first Sunday after his election, he explained that he took the name of Francis of Assisi because the saint was a man of the poor, a man of peace and someone who loved the creation. His choice to model his papacy after the saint’s commitment to humble service may signal the new pope’s commitment to a more irenic dialogue with the Muslim community than that of his predecessor.

Moreover, after Benedict XVI’s now infamous 2006 speech in Regensburg in which he inadvertently denigrated the Prophet Muhammad by quoting an obscure medieval text, Cardinal Bergoglio distanced himself from Benedict’s remarks saying that they would “serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last 20 years.”

This response is only one indication that Francis’ papacy may bring a much-needed change in tone and a re-commitment to dialogue.  As more information has emerged about Bergoglio, we’ve learned that the cardinal was a real unifier between Jews, Muslims and Christians in Argentina.  In 2010 he published a book,On Heaven and Earth, with his good friend, Rabbi Abraham Skorka.  It records their own personal conversations about religion, and in it, Bergoglio writes this:

“Dialogue is born from an attitude of respect for the other person, from a conviction that the other person has something good to say. It assumes that there is room in the heart for the person’s point of view, opinion, and proposal. To dialogue entails a cordial reception, not a prior condemnation. In order to dialogue it is necessary to know how to lower the defenses, open the doors of the house, and offer human warmth.”

Muslims worldwide are likewise optimistic about the new pontiff. In Italy, the Italian Islamic Religious Community issued a statement saying, “As Muslims of the West, we take as a particularly hopeful sign the reminder, in the name of the new pontiff, of the great example of sanctity and opening to the East and to Islam that St. Francis of Assisi gave.” At the Grand Mosque in Paris, clerics said they hoped the Pope would be inspired by his link to St. Francis, “who at the start of the 13th century voluntarily initiated the first Islamic-Christian dialogue in history.” In the Pope’s homeland of Argentina, Galeb Moussa, the president of the Federation of Argentinian Arab Organizations said: “We have a lot of faith in the breadth of his vision and his openness to dialogue.” At a Muslim prayer service at Georgetown University, two days after the Pope’s election, student Saaliha Khan even read the “Prayer of St. Francis” at the conclusion of her reflection.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Like his namesake, Pope Francis does not have professional expertise in Catholic-Muslim relations, but it is his seeming humble and loving disposition that makes dialogue a such a natural activity for him. We hope that a commitment to dialogue continues to flow from Pope Francis’ unique combination of Jesuit and Franciscan charisms.

In an early press conference as the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis expressed his desire for a “poor” Church, and Catholics have begun envisioning what this “poorer” Church will look like. We see deeper ties with Muslims, and an interest in genuine dialogue, as an integral part to our Church becoming poorer in spirit.

We hope that Francis and his poor Church can be an example for Catholics and all people around the world–that it will motivate them to embrace their neighbors (and even their enemies) as the Poor Man of Assisi did.

Fr. Michael Calabria, OFM is a Franciscan friar and chaplain-in-residence at Georgetown University. Jordan Denari is a senior at Georgetown University and president of the Interfaith Student Council.

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Posted in Catholicism, Christianity, Islam, Jesuit, Religion | 3 Comments

Christus Paradox: Reflections on “Of Gods and Men”

Posted on December 26, 2012 by

You shouldn’t read this blog post.  At least not until you see the film, “Of Gods and Men.”

Really, stop now if you intend to watch it and don’t want me to spoil it for you.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Click here to watch the trailer.

The movie tells the true story of French monks living in the hills of Algeria during the civil war in the 1990s. These Catholic men worked simply alongside their Muslim neighbors, responding to medical needs and providing other basic services. Wanting to push foreigners out, both the government forces and rebel groups threatened the monastic community, but the priests chose to stay—and ultimately lost their lives because of it.

The film is at once hopeful and tragic, peaceful and terrifying.  The moments of beauty and solidarity are just as heartbreaking as those of brutality and fear.  Some of my favorite scenes in “Of Gods and Men” take place on Christmas, and that’s why it seems appropriate for me to write about this film now, as the holiday is upon us.

“Of Gods and Men,” which might just be my favorite movie, has helped me rediscover—or even recognize for the first time—some important lessons about the Incarnation (God becoming human in the person of Jesus) that many of us may often miss.

“A happy night in Palestine”

In the slanted afternoon light of Christmas Eve, an old monk named Celestin hobbles around the chapel of the Tibhirine monastery, organizing candles for the evening Mass.  He cheerily sings this hymn under his breath:

God has prepared the earth
like a cradle
for His coming from above.
This is the night,
the happy night in Palestine.
And nothing exists except the child,
except the child of life Divine.
By taking flesh of our flesh,
God our desert did refresh
and made a land of boundless spring.

Celestin’s joyous anticipation of the birth of Jesus reflects the Christian attitude we expect during the season. It is only natural for us to be happy as we welcome our Salvation, the God who took on flesh to dwell among us—as a little baby.

This point (that God came to us not through military strength or kingship, as was expected, but instead through poverty and childhood) is not missed by the monks.  Processing into the dark chapel to begin the Christmas service, the monks sing this hymn, and the youngest monk, Christophe, gently places a figurine of the newborn Jesus into the manger scene.

To listen to the hymn and watch the clip, click here.

To listen to the hymn and watch the clip, click here.

This gesture, and the hymn that the monks sing together in unison, is a reminder of the humility and vulnerability that characterize Christmas.  Often, we become so accustomed to the story of Jesus’ birth that we hardly recognize the very powerful lesson it tells us about the way God works: not through massive displays of power, but through the simplicity and poverty of His creation.

The holiday of Christmas, the monks help us realize, is an acknowledgement that God’s kingdom of peace, justice, and love will be achieved in very unexpected ways, by and through people about whom we usually don’t give a second thought. Born to a stigmatized mother in a forgotten town, his life threatened by a power-hungry king, Jesus was the definition of “marginalized.”  Most people didn’t care about him, and those that did wanted him dead. Yet, it was he who became the most important bearer of God’s transformative love. No wonder the monks exude an aura of awe as they sing quietly in dim candlelight.

“Take new lodgings in my heart”

The monks understand quite well, however, that the Incarnation is not simply a one-time event that happened two thousand years ago. It is also a cosmic mystery (a faith-filled assertion that God imbues all of creation and can be known in this world) that must be embodied and internalized by humanity.

Sitting around their meeting table a few weeks after Christmas, the monks discuss whether or not to flee Algeria, to escape the violence engulfing the country.  The abbot of the monastery, Christian, reflects on the events that occurred directly before their Christmas Mass, when armed terrorists stormed the compound, looking for medicine to heal their wounded comrades.  The encounter had shaken the priests, and woke them up to their own vulnerability and defenselessness. Christian explains to his fellow monks that the way to respond to the violence they face is by participating in the Incarnation:

I’ve often thought of that time … that time when Ali Fayattia and his men left.  Once they were gone, all we had left to do was to live.  And the first thing we did was … two hours later … we celebrated the Christmas Vigil and Mass.  It’s what we had to do.  It’s what we did.
 
And we sang the Mass.  We welcomed that child who was born for us … absolutely helpless and … and already so threatened.
 
Afterwards, we found salvation in undertaking our daily tasks.  The kitchen, the garden, the prayers, the bells.  Day after day. We had to resist the violence.  And day after day, I think each of us discovered that to which Jesus Christ beckons us. 
 
It’s to be born.  Our identities as men go from one birth to another.  And from birth to birth, we’ll each end up bringing to the world the child of God that we are.  The Incarnation, for us, is to allow the filial reality of Jesus to embody itself in our humanity.
 
The mystery of the Incarnation remains what we are going to live.  In this way, what we’ve already lived here takes root … as well as what we’re going to live in the future.

Christian reminds us that the Incarnation is not fully achieved if we don’t allow the mystery to unfold in our own ordinary activities.  By recognizing that God is born within us and in all creation, we naturally begin to live differently.  We more consciously try to embody the traits exhibited by the child, Jesus: his trust and humility.

Christian among the townspeople.

Christian among the townspeople.

Christian’s speech reflects the sentiment of one of my new favorite Advent songs, “The Dream Isaiah Saw.”  I can imagine the monks of Tibhirine praying these words, as I have done during the last few weeks:

Little child whose bed is straw,
Take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
Life redeemed from fang and claw.

“We do not see your face”

When we celebrate Christmas, we tend to feel joyful as Celestin did, ignoring the heavy stuff and leaving it for the solemn, rainy months of Lent. Jesus’ suffering and death seem far from our minds. Even if we do acknowledge the “fang and claw” that characterized Jesus’ time on earth and still plague our world, we perceive Jesus’ Incarnation as an event that somehow makes all that misery and pain go away.

But the monks help us understand that Jesus’ suffering—and our own—is inextricably linked with Christmas, a fact that we are no doubt more aware of this year, as we still contemplate the horror of the Sandy Hook massacre and violence against children.

As they finish the Christmas Eve hymn in the fading candlelight, the monks’ chant takes on a somber tone:

Listen to the hymn and watch the scene here.

Listen to the hymn and watch the scene here.

This is the night,
the long night in which we grope,
and nothing exists except this place,
except this place of ruined hope.
By stopping in our adobe,
God, as with the bush, did forebode
the world on which fire would fall.

Jesus’ eventual suffering always lingers in the background of his birth.  As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat expresses so beautifully in a piece about the school shooting and Christmas, “the rage of Herod is there as well, and the slaughtered innocents of Bethlehem, and the myrrh that prepares bodies for the grave. The cross looms behind the stable — the shadow of violence, agony and death.”

The Incarnation is not about ridding the world of suffering. Instead, it’s about solidarity, about staying.

God became human to share in our pain, to struggle alongside us. God embraced our vulnerability and weakness in order to be intimately close to us. To me, that’s a much more powerful, loving action than if God, from a high seat in Heaven, simply improved our humanly affairs without actually engaging in them.

The monks knew that living the Incarnation was most importantly about solidarity, even if it meant their eventual death.  They, like Jesus in the desert, were tempted to save themselves and leave behind the poor and marginalized they’d come to love. But ultimately they made the hard choice to stay.

By deciding to remain in Algeria, the monks didn’t choose “dying” over “living.” They simply decided to finish the work God had called them to do, with the understanding that either their living or their dying would be done in the service of God.

They, like Jesus, didn’t seek out death. Jesus didn’t say, “Ok, it’s time to die! Now someone find me a cross!” Rather, he remained with the people, loving them in a radically simple way, for as long as he could.  As we see in the Gospels, Jesus did the will of the Father, whether that led him to walk down with Mary Magdalene in the valleys of Galilee or up the rocky mountain to Calvary.  His living and dying were offered up equally to God.

Christophe in prayer.

Christophe in prayer.

Jesus’ example of self-sacrificing solidarity, and his call for us to emulate it, can be a hard thing for us to swallow. We, like Christophe, whisper to the darkness, “I’m afraid! Help me…”  We wonder if God is truly good, if He allows us to face such uncertainty and struggle.

Douthat again offers some wisdom that we, and Christophe, may be comforted by: “The New Testament… seeks to establish God’s goodness through a narrative rather than an argument, a revelation of his solidarity with human struggle rather than a philosophical proof of his benevolence.”

Douthat, and our whole Christian faith for that matter, argues that the experience of suffering does not imply God’s absence, and it is not an indication that God is not “good.”

Instead, we know that God is good because God is Emmanuel. Because God is with us, just as He is with Christian, who walks along the water and is brought to tears by the recollection of this hymn:

We do not know your mystery,
Infinite Love,
but You do have a heart,
for You seek the Prodigal son
and hold against Your breast
the troublesome child,
which is the world of mortals.
 
We do not see your face,
Infinite Love,
but You do have eyes,
for You see through the oppressed,
and look upon us
with a shining gaze…

Merry Christmas.

*Special thanks to a good friend and numerous Jesuits who helped me to reflect on the wisdom of this film.

T

The title of this post comes from another of my favorite songs, Christus Paradox, which also inspired points I made in this post.

Posted in Arabic, Catholicism, Christianity, Islam, Middle East, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Storytelling, Terrorism | 3 Comments

My talk at the Ignatian Family Teach-In

Posted on November 25, 2012 by

Last weekend, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to deliver the following speech at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice to an audience of over 1,000.

Using my own experiences with Muslim-Christian dialogue and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, I argued that we as Catholics are called to engage in interreligious dialogue.

Click here, or on the image below to watch “Living Nostra Aetate: Dialoging with Muslims,” or read the full text of the speech below the photo.

Click here to watch “Living Nostra Aetate: Dialoging with Muslims” November 16, 2012, IFTJ

Full text of the speech:

Good evening.

[My name is Jordan Denari, I’m a senior at Georgetown University here in Washington, D.C. (applause) and a proud alumnus of Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis (applause).  Forgive me, I’m getting over a cough and lost my voice earlier this week, so bear with me.]

I’d like to begin first by saying “Assalaamu ‘alaykum,” which, in Arabic, means “peace be with you.”  It seems like an appropriate way to begin today, given that it’s a phrase that Muslims use to greet one another, and it’s something that Jesus encouraged his followers to say to each other as well.

During my freshman year at Georgetown University, I was asked the following question multiple times: “Are you converting to Islam?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if people still asked that question now, three years later — given that I’ve been a board member of Georgetown’s Muslim Students Association, lived in the Muslim living-learning community, worked at an Islamic advocacy organization, and can often be spotted participating in Muslim Friday prayers with my hair wrapped up in a scarf.

In reality, however, I’m far from converting, and I feel more rooted in my own tradition, Catholicism, than ever before.

And that’s not spite of my engagement with the Muslim community, but because of it. Rather than pulling me away from my Catholic faith, interreligious dialogue with Muslims has deepened my faith, enriched it. Dialogue — which for me is about lived engagement with those different from myself — helped me fall back in love with the Catholic tradition in which I grew up.

At the beginning of college, while struggling with my Catholic identity and wondering if another religion like Islam might provide me with the connection to God that I was missing, I formed a close friendship with a Muslim girl in my dorm, Wardah. She taught me more about Islam than books ever could, because she simply lived her religion. When we roomed together as sophomores, she woke up early in the morning to pray and often stopped in the middle of homework assignments to pull out her prayer rug. Lacking commitment in my relationship with God, I wanted that kind of consistency in my own prayer life.

Wardah brought me to Muslim students’ events, like an iftar, the fast-breaking meal during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. I was struck by the sense of community and solidarity I saw among my new Muslim friends, and realized how much I craved that, too.

Finding these emphases on prayer and community in Islam reminded me that they also existed in my own Church, and I wanted to find them again. I signed up for a Catholic retreat with the intent of improving my daily prayer habits, and I joined a small Catholic bible study that provided me with a community with whom I could reflect on scripture. My relationship with God began improving, and my appreciation for my Catholic tradition increased.

My re-embracing of Catholicism would not have been possible without my exposure to Islam and my immersion into the Muslim community. But this process occurred differently than many might expect. People may assume that, after being exposed to Islam’s beliefs and practices and not liking them, I ran for the hills—the familiarity of Catholicism.

Instead, Islam, a faith not my own, became the medium through which I came to love the faith of my childhood. Islam provided me with a critical reference point from which I could see my own tradition more clearly. Before, I had been too close to really notice the beauty of Catholicism.

I often say that I have Islam to thank for helping me reclaim my faith —for making me a better Catholic. I think immersion into any other religious tradition would have served me in the same way.

As I began to reflect upon my own faith journey and the way in which Islam brought me back to Catholicism, I wondered what the Church would say about my engagement with the Muslim community and the interreligious dialogue that was so crucial to my experience.

A class on the post-Vatican II Church began to answer my questions, and I was thrilled to discover that the Church’s understanding of the importance of dialogue mirrored my own.

For the Church, interreligious dialogue is essential, and its purpose is vast: fostering understanding and learning between different religious groups; establishing social peace and cooperation; and strengthening the spirituality of all those involved.

The Church’s dedication to dialogue officially began with Nostra Aetate, a revolutionary Vatican II document that describes the Church’s new relationship to non-Christian religions.  In only five short paragraphs, it reshaped the way the Church approaches people of other faiths.

It reads: the Church “urges its sons and daughters to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions.  Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, together with their social life and culture.”

The Church asserts that I can still remain true to my Catholic identity—that I am actually living out my Catholicism—while supporting and encouraging my Muslim friends’ way of life.

Pope John Paul II, who took strides to implement the ideals called for in Nostra Aetate, wrote in his encyclical Redemptor Hominis that participation in dialogue “does not at all mean losing certitude about one’s own faith or weakening the principles of morality…” Rather, he said, “the strong beliefs and the moral values of the followers of other religions can and should challenge Christians to respond more fully and generously to the demands of their own Christian faith.”

This has been my experience precisely. And that’s why I continue to stay involved in the Muslim community. Not only are Muslims my good friends, but their devotion to their religion constantly motivates me to re-examine the way I live out my Catholicism.

And, it’s why I’ve led efforts at Georgetown to provide religiously-diverse students with opportunities to dialogue with one another. Thanks to our small-group dialogue program, students find that their stereotypes of others are shattered, and in seeing how other believers practice their faith, they reflect on their own tradition in a new light.

The most powerful—and likely surprising—line in Nostra Aetate is one that again speaks directly to my own experiences.

It reads: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. …[Their teachings] often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men and women.”

I feel “rays of truth”—or God’s presence—when I participate in Muslim prayer and squish shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the congregation.  I see the rays of truth when I watch the way my Muslim friends interact with one another in love.

And I hear the rays of truth in the azan, the Islamic call to prayer.  When I studied abroad in Amman, Jordan, I was constantly drawn into a state of prayer upon hearing the azan five times a day.  It was God calling me to dhikr, remembrance of God and the way he works in my life.

Nostra Aetate helped me realize that living a life of dialogue and interreligious engagement with Muslims was an inherently Catholic vocation, and it continues to challenge me today to live out that call in deeper ways:

The Church encourages all to “work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve, as well as to promote, together, social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom, for the benefit of all mankind.”

It’s particularly important for me to stand in solidarity with my Muslim brothers and sisters today, in light of the prejudices that Muslims face in the post-9/11 world.

Last month, anti-Muslim hate propaganda lined the walls of the D.C. metro, and a friend’s mosque was targeted in arson. And those are only two of myriad hate-filled and ignorance-driven acts that Muslims have had to cope with over the last few years.  When I worked at an Islamic advocacy organization, I’d read daily local news reports about hate crimes against Muslims, but never were they reported about on a national scale, despite the fact that between 2009 and 2010, hate crimes against Muslims in America rose by 50%.  As a Catholic, I can’t forget that our minority religious community too faced prejudice and scapegoating during an earlier time in American history.  Like Muslims, we Catholics were marginalized because we were “foreign” and “threatening to American law and way of life.”

Today, the same accusations—and worse—are leveled against Muslims. Because many Americans don’t know Muslims—62% claim to have never met a Muslim—the media’s negative portrayal allows the American public—and many Christians—to push Muslims to the margins.

Unfortunately, I saw this marginalization occurring in my own Catholic community back home in Indianapolis.  One afternoon during my junior year of high school, I opened my e-mail inbox to find a hateful, Islamophobic chain message, forwarded from a family friend.  The email contained inflammatory epithets about Muslims, who, according to the email, expressed tacit approval for terrorism and violence committed by a few radicals.  I was angry and sad that a family friend, someone from my own Catholic community, could espouse and promote this hateful sentiment—that she would lump terrorists together with people like my friend, Nadir, a Muslim who went to my high school, Brebeuf Jesuit, and now goes to Georgetown with me. He is an exceptional individual who exudes kindness and has committed his life to helping others.  I wondered how my family friend could put him in the same category as those who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

It was immediately apparent to me that my family friend was not a hateful woman; it was her ignorance that resulted in her prejudicial comments. Those in my Catholic community who had circulated this email did so because of their lack of understanding of Muslims.

I hope my own story, and the call of Nostra Aetate, can help remind Christians how much we need our Muslim neighbors—how much we can learn about God and each other by engaging with them.  We must be like the Samaritan, pulling up the stranger.  We must bring Muslims out of the margins, making clear that they too are our neighbors.

Every night, I go to Mass in the chapel of the North American Jesuit Martyrs at Georgetown.  It’s a habit that I never would have anticipated myself undertaking four years ago, when I came to college shaky about my Catholic identity.  During the Eucharist, I often think about the fact that I wouldn’t be at nightly Mass were it not for the group of believers on the other side of the chapel wall—the Georgetown Muslim community.  While the Catholics participate in their 10pm Mass, the Muslim students complete their nightly 10pm isha prayer in the musallah, or prayer room, next door.  When I come to Mass discouraged about the state of Muslim-Christian relations—when it seems that violence and bigotry will win out—I’m often strengthened by the quiet, Arabic words that echo from the musallah into the chapel every night: Allahu akbar—God is greater.

(End of speech)

Posted in Arabic, Catholicism, Christianity, Family, Islam, Islamophobia, Jesuit, Religion, Storytelling, Washington, D.C. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Conversations with a Carmelite

Posted on October 16, 2012 by

When I chose the name Teresa of Avila for my Confirmation name during my freshman year of high school, I didn’t know what an important, meaningful decision I’d made.

I picked her because she founded the Discalced Carmelites, a group of sisters I had grown close to in Indianapolis and admired for their contemplation, simplicity, and intellect.  Living in Spain during the 16th century, Teresa was a prolific spiritual writer and was eventually named a “Doctor of the Church” for her contributions to Catholic thought. She was a mystic, something that at the time sounded pretty darn cool, even though I didn’t really understand what it meant.  And—most importantly!—Teresa’s life is celebrated on October 15th, the day before my birthday. 

Since picking the name Teresa, I have—without knowing it—grown closer to her.  As I started to read bits of her work, I noticed that we share more than a love for writing and a common day (give or take) for celebrating our lives. I see my own experiences mirrored in hers, and I’m also struck by the way she challenges me to go deeper in living my relationship with God.  I’m currently taking a class on medieval women mystics because I wanted to be forced to read Teresa.

I’d like to share a few excerpts from her work that are particularly powerful for me, in the hopes that they will be edifying for others.

Finding God Within 

Mystics across all religious traditions share an understanding that God can be found inside the heart.  It’s a radical and powerful assertion that often challenges our usual notions of a distant God.

It is an ennobling thing to think that God is more in the soul of man than He is in aught else outside of Himself.  They are happy people who have once got a hold of this glorious truth.  In particular, the Blessed Augustine testifies that neither in the house, nor in the church, nor anywhere else, did he find God, till once he had found Him in himself.  Nor had he need to go up to heaven, but only down into himself to find God… 

You need not go to heaven to see God, or to regale yourself with God.  Nor need you speak loud as if He were far away.  Nor need you cry for wings like a dove so as to fly to Him.  Settle yourself in solitude, and you will come upon God in yourself.  And then entreat Him as your Father, and relate to Him your troubles.  Those who can in this manner shut themselves up in the little heaven of their own hearts, where He dwells who made heaven and earth, let them be sure that they walk in the most excellent way… 

He sits on the innermost seat of your heart, and holds it to be His best and bravest throne. 

Prayer as Love and Relationship

Bernini’s St. Teresa in Ecstacy

Teresa is known best for her writings on cultivating an interior prayer life.  She experienced an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus, and often reported visions and moments of ecstasy and union with God.  This is why Teresa is also known as St. Teresa of Jesus.

Prayer is an act of love.

For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us… The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. 

She had candid, often humorous conversations with Jesus.  When she asked Jesus why her friends and others showed her hostility, Jesus said to her, “Teresa, that’s how I treat my friends” and she responded, “No wonder you have so few friends.”

But it took her a long time to develop this close relationship.  She writes that she tried unsuccessfully for eighteen years to converse with Jesus.

The Importance of Action

Teresa understood that prayer meant nothing if it wasn’t tied to action. Christ’s love, she recognized, can only be expressed through our human activities.

Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world. 

Like all of us, Teresa was a busy, overworked woman.  She founded a new order and was busy instructing sisters, writing, and fending off the Inquisition.  But she, like St. Ignatius, practiced ‘contemplation in action.’

If you [God] want me to remain so busy, please force me to think about and love you even in the midst of such hectic activity. If you do not want me so busy, please release me from it… I know that you are constantly beside me, yet I am usually so busy that I ignore you.

Intent on doing God’s will, she offered up her entire being for God’s service.

I am Yours and born of You,
What do You want of me?

In Your hand
I place my heart,
Body, life and soul,
Deep feelings and affections mine,
Spouse — Redeemer sweet,
Myself offered now to you,
What do You want of me? 

Give me then wisdom.
Or for love, ignorance,
Years of abundance,
Or hunger and famine.
Darkness or sunlight,
Move me here or there:
What do You want of me?

Be I Joseph chained
Or as Egypt’s governor,
David pained
Or exalted high,
Jonas drowned,
Or Jonas freed:
What do You want of me?

Islamic influence

Living in a country steeped with Islamic thought, Teresa was influenced (consciously or not) by Islamic mysticism, Sufism, and contemporary theologians have argued that this influence is reflected in her writing.

My own spiritual life has also been shaped by Sufism, particularly by the poetry of Rumi, and thus this point of connection between Teresa and I was initially surprising and comforting.

≈≈≈

My choice of the name Teresa illustrates the way in which God works through even the most mundane or careless of our actions. Though I had no idea of the name’s significance at the time, God did.  God wanted me to draw closer to Teresa, so I could draw closer to Jesus and find him in myself and in those around me.

It seems appropriate to end with this prayer from Teresa, a prayer I wouldn’t be surprised to find in a book of Rumi’s poetry.

Let nothing trouble you,
let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing;
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who possesses God lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

St. Teresa of Jesus, pray for us.

Two of my friends who also share the confirmation name Teresa!

For Teresa’s feast day, I made oatmeal CARMELitas for my friends at Mass!

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Lessons from Good Pope John, Part 3: Detachment and trust

Posted on October 13, 2012 by

This is the last post in a series about the exemplary life of Blessed Pope John XXIII, whose feast we celebrated on October 11.  Today’s post is on detachment and trust.

John allowed God to carry him through life, just as his father carried him on his shoulders when he was a boy. His motto was “obedience and peace”—he was always conscious about the need to be content following God’s will for him.

John wrote often about the need for detachment and trust in God during his time as a young man in Bulgaria, where he was stationed as a papal ambassador.  He didn’t want to go, and called Bulgaria his “cross.”

He wrote: “I’m sincerely ready to stay here until I die, if obedience wants it. I let others waste their time dreaming about what might happen to me.  The idea that one would be better off somewhere else is an illusion.”

He also wrote: “Once you have renounced everything, really everything, then any bold enterprise becomes the simplest and most natural thing in all the world.”

This attitude was one he carried with him as he called the Vatican II council, when many doubted his ability to carry out such a large task—councils require the coordination of 2,500 bishops.  John didn’t let others’ negative opinions hold him back, nor did he let his old age keep him from starting a new project.

John knew he wouldn’t see the end of the council, not to mention its effects in the world.  Just a month before opening the council, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.  He died a year later in 1963; the council concluded in 1965.

But as John told his good friend and secretary, “it is an honor just to begin.”  He knew that the mission of the Church, that God’s will, was bigger than himself.  “If I die, others will come,” he said.

And many have come after, continuing the work that John began. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, we are reminded of our call to do that in our own ways.

Most saints, or those deemed “blessed” like John, are celebrated on their death day.  But we don’t celebrate John on June 3, the day he died.  Instead, we remember him on the date of Vatican II’s opening, October 11th.

And I think that’s how John would want it.

Check out Parts 1 and 2 on humor and humility and compassion and courage.

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Lessons from Good Pope John, Part 2: Compassion and courage

Posted on October 12, 2012 by

This post is the second piece in a series about Pope John XXIII, who opened the Vatican II Council on October 11, 1962.  I hope we can celebrate the 50th anniversary of the council, and live out its mission, by following the example of the Good Pope.

John’s motto for his papacy was “pastor and father.”  He didn’t just preach about unconditional Christian love, but he lived it by intimately engaging with people, even when it was unpopular.

Like a loving grandfather, John encouraged parents to “give their children a kiss from the pope,” and every day would pray the rosary for all the babies born in the world that day.

John with a little girl in her First Communion outfit.

He could easily empathize with others, and, while working as a military chaplain during World War I, wrote, “It often happened—permit me this personal memory—that I had to fall on my knees and cry like a child, alone in my room, unable to contain the emotion I felt at the simple and holy deaths of so many poor sons of our people.” As a diplomat in Europe during World War II, John worked secretly to save Jews by forging birth certificates and marriage papers.

John constantly practiced and encouraged aggiornamento—updating or renewal—during a time when the Church, for so long, had refused to engage with the modern world.

He not only pushed the Church toward aggiornamento by calling the Council, but he also sought to redefine his own position as pope. He took the name John upon ascending to the papacy, despite the fact that the name was considered “unsalvageable” after the militaristic John XXII had tainted the name.  The Good Pope reclaimed the name and transformed it.

John visits prisoners on Christmas in 1958.

John broke with the papal tradition of seclusion and made the world his home.  In a radical move, he celebrated his first Christmas as pope at a local prison. Upon meeting the prisoners he said, “You could not leave to see me so I came to you.”

Only days into his papacy—which many had assumed would be a short-term, transitional period, given John’s old age—John announced he plan to call a council.  It came in a “flash of inspiration” from the Holy Spirit, he said, and took swift action to make it happen.

John addressed the fears of Church leaders and laity who were wary about a council, and about bringing the Church into the modern world that it, for so long, had pulled away from.

In his opening speech at the council, John said, “We must disagree with these prophets of gloom,” who could only see the destruction and corruption of modernity. “We must recognize here the hand of God,” John asserted, understanding the good that modernity could do for the Church, and the good that the Church could do for modernity.  John quickly published an encyclical addressing all people (not just Catholics), which spoke about imperialism, just wage, social justice, human rights, relations with the Jews, liturgy, and religious freedom.  Speaking in modern terms about modern crises, he wanted all the world’s people to know how much he loved them.

Yesterday, I wrote about John’s humor and humility.  Tomorrow, I’ll discuss John’s attitude of detachment and trust.

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Lessons from Good Pope John, Part 1: Humor and Humility

Posted on October 12, 2012 by

Today, we celebrate the life of Blessed Pope John XXIII, who opened the Second Vatican Council—arguably the most important religious event of the twentieth century—on October 11, 1962.

Much has been written about the council on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, and I hope to contribute to that body of work in the coming weeks and months.  But today, on his feast day, I’d like to reflect briefly on the life of John XXIII—the Good Pope, as he was called.

A few weeks ago, when I was preparing a presentation on John to deliver for a class on Vatican II, I was struck by his humor and humility, compassion and courage, and detachment and trust.  I’d like to share a few quotes and anecdotes about John’s attributes, in the hopes that we can carry on the mission of the Second Vatican Council by following his example.

Today’s post speaks to his humor and humility.  I’ll post about compassion and detachment on Friday and Saturday.

Humor and humility

John, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, came from a humble farming family in Northern Italy, and he used humor to remind himself of that.

When a little boy asked him once if he too could one day be pope, John replied: “Anybody can be pope. The proof is that I have become one.”

“It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it.  Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope!” John was so concerned about helping others that he often forgot about his own prominent position.

Some other great John jokes:

Reporter: “How many people work at the Vatican?”
John XXIII: “About half.”

Head nun at the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome: “Welcome, Holy Father, I’m the superior of the Holy Spirit.”
John XXIII: “You outrank me. I’m only the Vicar of Christ!”

Parts 2 and 3 will be posted in the coming days.

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