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Spring Festivals

23/3/2020

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A global virus has done what we human beings have been incapable of doing – reducing carbon emissions. For the first time in a long time Beijing is without pollution and citizens can see blue sky, the canals of Venice are clear and fish and dolphins are returning. Is coronavirus the cosmos reaching out for equilibrium and will we humans learn from it?  So much of ordinary life has changed but nature goes on and there are signs of spring everywhere. Even religious services have been cancelled but there’s still much to celebrate in religion. Recently there’s been a rash of religious festivals, all around the 21st March.

On 21st March the Baha’i community ended their nineteen day fast with the festival of Naw Ruz, which is also the Iranian and Zoroastrian New Year. Taking place, as it does, at the spring equinox it symbolises the new life of spring and is associated with the Most Great Name of God. Sending greetings to the Baha’i community, Bishop Brian McGee, chair of the Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue commented that there is a lesson for all of us in this, especially those of us who are believers: “For those of us who are believers the sovereignty of God is a counterpoint to the material and consumerist culture of our times.  Coronavirus, climate change and its consequences, conflicts between and within nations are indicative of a world in which humanity has forgotten that life is a gift, that we are all brothers and sisters sharing a common home with a responsibility of caring for creation and one another for the sake of future generations.”  Shall we be more aware of this when the present crisis is over?

Another spring festival which lasts over two days is the Hindu festival of Holi. Like all Hindu festivals there are stories attached to them – one is of a demon Holika who was burned on a pyre in place of Prahlahda who insisted on worshipping the God Vishnu. Another is of the Lord Krishna who being worried that Radha would not accept his blue skin was encouraged by his mother to rub any colour he wished on Radha’s face. So the carnival atmosphere during Holi involves the lighting of bonfires to symbolise the overcoming of evil and throw coloured paint and powder over one another. I was in India once during Holi. We danced round the bonfire but I retired well before the others who danced and sang all through the night. The next day we were bombarded with coloured water bombs that seemed to come out of nowhere. This year Holi was celebrated at the beginning of March, before the virus kept people off the streets.

At the same time as the Hindu community were celebrating Holi, the Jewish community were  celebrating the carnival festival of Purim.  Purim recalls how Queen Esther saved the Jewish community when the wicked Haman had convinced King Ahaseurus of Persia to issue a decree ordering their extermination. The story is told at Purim when the Book of Esther is read through twice in the synagogue. Every time the name Haman is mentioned it’s drowned out with rattles and hooters and boos from the congregation. Children also wear fancy dress and there’s a sense of hope and celebration, a bond of unity within the community and a belief in survival in the face of what in the story seemed a hopeless situation.  I’m sure this festival has taken on added significance since the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews. It’s a lesson for all of us that life can come out of death, that hope can overcome despair, that communities that stand together can and do survive. 

Last year these three festivals fell on the same day. This year Purim and Holi were held earlier in March while Naw Ruz was celebrated on 20th. They’ve a certain amount in common, being Spring festivals. Purim and Holi have a carnival atmosphere and all of them a sense of new beginnings, a sense that light can follow darkness. As the world faces these dark days of isolation and quarantine their message can give us hope and confidence that this too will pass, that a new life is possible, that we will one day be able to celebrate once again with family and friends.  
 

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Ritual Participation

10/3/2020

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I was at a conference on people of faith participating in the rituals of another faith recently– a topic that is of interest to academics and practitioners alike. There are trends in interfaith studies as in other disciplines. In the early days the focus of study was truth and salvation which led to a theology of religions that talked in terms of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, categories that can still be useful in helping us reflect on our attitude to others. This was then followed by questions of complementarity, how and what we can learn from others with a focus on activities such as scriptural reasoning. Then we moved on to reflections on the nature of interfaith including who was involved in the dialogue. But now, suggested Professor Marianne Moyaert, there is an interest in what happens in the space between traditions and how we create multifaith spaces and interrituality – a new term for me. The conference had arisen from reflections on a situation here in Glasgow when a young Muslim woman had read from the Qur’an in a Christian service. Not only was this criticised quite severely by some people but it led to vitriolic and hateful speech with one person being taken to court because of it.

There are many ways of participating and sharing rituals -  Interfaith families work this out for themselves, religious leaders come together to speak about and pray for peace, people visit places of worship and observe what is going on and sometimes, as in the situation above, one community invites another to participate in a service. This expresses a desire to build bridges and share sacred space with another. The invited person comes as a guest and, as in all situations of hospitality, there  needs to be an awareness of what is appropriate for both and how far each can easily enter into the world of the other. 

One participant, a young woman doing a doctorate in Boston, read a paper on different ways of  participating in ritual: observation, imitation and participation.  This is helpful for me. I’ve been to visit places of worship and been invited to show respect, perambulate around the sacred image, receive prashad - simple ways of imitating what was going on which took me beyond simple curious observation. For some people this is difficult as it would suggest participation in or belief in another faith with which they are not comfortable. But it need not mean this. I’ve had the situation when I took students to visit a Hindu Temple and even observing a simple arti ceremony led one student to go to confession to confess participating in a false religion.  I took it for granted the students would be interested to observe but had not prepared them by making the clarifying the differences between observation, imitation and participation.

This sense of observation and imitation is also helpful in thinking about our Catholic schools which, in some places, have more Muslim than Catholic pupils. I’ve been involved recently with Head Teachers and teachers in the primary sector exploring how schools keep their Catholic identity while being open to other faiths. An expression of Catholic identity is a school celebration of the Eucharist or Mass and Muslim pupils and parents are often invited to attend which many happily do. It could be helpful for us to reflect a bit on what we are asking of those of another faith – are we asking them simply to sit and observe, encouraging them to imitate in that they stand and sit at appropriate times or inviting a simply participation in some parts of the service such as receiving a blessing or bringing up the offering? Such reflection might make what is essentially a Catholic ritual into something that could be a bit more inclusive and expressive of the school community as well as the Catholic ethos.  
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Two other ways in which people can and do participate in another faith are dual belonging and practising Buddhist meditation. Engaging in interfaith is a journey into the faith of another and holy envy can well be part of the experience. To discover a helpful practice is a gift. Practices such as meditation and mindfulness are becoming common even for those not engaging in interfaith but seeking a way of coping with life. This could be a way of participating in a Buddhist ritual but reflection on that needs another blog

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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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