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A Time for Celebration

30/10/2015

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28th November this week was a day for celebratiion. On 28th November 1965 Pope Paul VI promulgated one of the last documents to come from the Second Vatican Council. It started the Catholic Church on a journey which is never ending. It's called Nostra Aetate which follows the Vatican tradition of naming documents after the first words of the latin translation. It begins

" In our time when  day by day humankind  is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non- Christian religions. 

Nostra Aetate wasn't planned for. It was an unexpected gift of the Spirit. When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council he had a concern for Christian Unity but no plans for anything interfaith. This changed after a meeting with the Jewish historian Jules Isaac who had written a book, detailing the history of Christian anti-Semitism and how this was expressed in Christian scriptures and writings. The Pope  was very aware of the fate the Jews had suffered in the Holocaust. As Apostolic Delegate to Turkey he had distributed baptismal certificates to save Jews from the horrors awaiting them and in recognition of this was acknowledged as one of the Righteous Gentiles. As a result of his meeting with Jules Isaac the Pope asked for a statement on the Church's relations with the Jewish people which after much debate and a certain amount of controversy was extended to other faiths and finally promultgated as Nostra Aetate. 

This was only the beginning but it was a turning point which has changed the Catholic Church's relations with the Jews and begun 50 years of interreligious dialogue. It has taken Popes to visit Synagogues and Mosques, call religious leaders to Assisi to pray for peace and speak out over and over again about the importance of interfaith relations.  It certainly is something to celebrate and there are celebrations all over the world, some highpowered and academic, some simpler and more community based.  Some will have been organised by Committees for Interreligious Dialogue but many have been organised by Councils of Christians and Jews. An important one is to take place in a few days time in Jerusalem when Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze will come together to seek peace in that troubled and divided city - good news but not one that will make the headlines.

We celebrated Nostra Aetate in Scotland. We remembered how things had changed over the past 50 years and reflected together on the future.  This was an event organised by the Catholic Bishops' Committee for Interreligious Dialogue and the Episcopal Church's Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths. It included Christians from a number of denominations and friends from the Jewish, Muslim and Baha'i Faiths.  As one of the speakers said, who would have imagined 50 years ago that this small documented would be celebrated in Glasgow by different Christian denominations and different faiths. It would have been unthinkable in the 1960s and shows just how far we have come in the journey towards understanding and friendship. 

Fifty years ago there were no interfaith groups in Scotland, now there are twenty and a national interfaith body, Interfaith Scotland.  Religious Leaders meet regularly, faith communities open their doors and hearts to other faiths, work together in service to the community and the Government recognises and supports all this work, knowing that it makes a valuable contribution to social cohesion and harmony.  In all this work the Christian Churches have played an important and significant role. This was celebrated on the day with the publication of a booklet ' CAIRing for Scotland, the Churches Contribution to Interfaith Relations in Scotland'. The purpose was not to praise the Churches or the individuals involved but to keep alive the memory of interfaith relations in Scotland. For many of us involved in interfaith relations the time is coming when we must hand over to a younger generation. This is necessary if the work is to continue, develop and flourish. But this future work builds on that done by others. It will have its roots in the past but  a past that should not be forgotten but kept alive in the memory of those who come after.  Hopefully CAIRing for Scotland will do that.

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Passing Over

22/10/2015

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 The prestigious Glasgow Gifford lectures have just finished. This year they were given by Professor Perry Schmidt-Leukel who, for ten years, was director of the Centre for Interfaith Studies at Glasgow University. I was privileged to work with Perry  during that time and it was a great joy to have him back in Glasgow for two weeks. The theme of the lectures was "Interreligious Theology: The Future Shape of Theology". They were fascinating, exciting, stimulating and for some very challenging.  They were an explanation of how to do theology in a world in which religious pluralism not just as a reality but as a growing reality and one none of us can ignore or deny. 

​Theology is a community exercise. It's been described by St Anselm as faith seeking understanding so that we have Christian theology, Muslim theology, Jewish theology etc.  Each theology draws on its own resources and often the conclusions in one faith seem to contradict the conclusions in another. Can both Jesus and Mohammed be the final revelation of God?  Are all religions legitimate ways to salvation?  Perry's  thesis was that theology has to come out from its own narrow self-definitions and take seriously the theology of other faiths.  To do so it might be possible to discover that seemingly contradictory religious truths may be more compatible than first thought, even producing a synthesis of belief.  Interfaith practitioners are used to the idea of passing over into another faith and coming back to one's own to see it in a new light.  Plurality now demands that theology does this. Perry stressed that this will not lead to a unified world religion but should allow different  theologies to take seriously eachother's truth claims and seek together for truth in a dialogic way that hopefully will reduce the potential for interreligious conflict. 

But is this really possible? Well only if we trust the other and believe that truth is to be found in their faith. And if truth is to be found there then it has to be compatible with our truth since truth is one. This is not always obvious, so contradictory truth claims need to be researched to find out how and where compatability and even complementarity 
might lie. This is the task of interreligious theology.  And we were given practical examples of it.

Perry took us through an exposition of Jesus as the Son of God and Mohammed as the Seal of the Prophets to see whether it's possible to have a common understanding of these doctrinal beliefs that are compatible and complementary. Muslims of course do not accept Jesus as the Son of God. Understanding this in a literal and biological sense they see the deification of a human being as polytheistic and idolatrous, totally opposed to the transcedence of God which is so central to their faith. This critique, Perry suggested, is not a critique of Christianity but a critique of how Muslims understand Christianity to be denying the transcendence of God. And yet Christians believe in the absolute transendence of God and are also opposed to polytheism and idolatry. So how do they understand the sonship of Jesus?Well we know that there are many Christologies. In the letter to the Romans we are told that "all led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" which would suggest that Jesus' unique sonship is based on his devotion to the will of God and his openness to the Spirit of God. In him it's possible to see what God's rule looks like and therefore, for Christians, Jesus is truly the image of the invisible God, but not the whole of God. It might well be that these kind of interpretations open up possibilities for compatibility and complementarity especially when Surah 4:17 of the Qur'an sees Jesus as the Word of God and the Spirit of God which is a designation not given to any other prophets.  
 
I know I'm explaining this in a rather simplistic way and leaving out much of Perry's exposition but I hope it gives a flavour of the possibilities in interreligious theology. I was excited by it and recognised that this kind of  theological dialogue  is an echo of the internal dialogue that goes on in the hearts of many people who engage in interfaith relations and are challenged by the faith and holiness they encounter in others. I'm sure you'll hear more of the Gifford lectures in the future.

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Go Gently into the Night

14/10/2015

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Two of my community died this week - one of them very unexpectedly and suddenly, the other not so sudden. She went gently into the night after many years of suffering and disability.  It's brought us all up short as once again we've been faced with the reality that in the last analysis we cannot control life or death and that it can happen to any one of us anytime, anywhere. Life is fragile and it's this fragility that makes it precious and wonderful.

One of my lasting memories is of an interview  Melvyn Bragg conducted with Denis Potter in his last days.  His talk was of his impending death but also of how he was seeing  life through new eyes and appreciating so much. He talked of the blossom on the tree outside his window as he strove to complete his final play. This wordsmith couldn't find the words to describe its beauty. I remember him saying, while rubbing his fingers, it was the blossomiest, blossomiest blossom and though this might seem nonsense it certainly conveys the beauty of the tree and the magnificence of its blossom as well as an appreciation of its grandeur. Facing death, Dennis Potter really appreciated life and its giftedness. In some way we are all facing death. It can come like a thief in the night and be taken from us at any moment.  For some people this is a scary thought and they would do anything to distract themselves from it. The Japanese say that we are only able to live when we have faced death.  I presume this is because facing death takes away our fear of it, stops us being self-defensive and enables us to live and enjoy life as fully as we can.  It helps us realise the giftedness and sacredness of life and the world in which we live - hopefully helping us treat it with reverence and respect. Seize the day, as the saying goes, because it will never come again. We only have the present.  Today's fashion in  mindfulness teaches the same thing.

Death also brings us face to face with the sacredness and mystery of human beings. As the word of the death of our two sisters spread across the community we shared memories and reminiscences of their lives, we reflected on who they were and what they meant to us. But it also made me  realise that there was much we didn't know about them. So much of our knowledge of one another is surface knowledge.  Thomas Merton has said: 

​       ‘A person is a person in so far as each has a secret
        and is a solitude of their own
        that cannot be communicated to anyone else’. 

Each of these two sisters  had their  own inner struggles and challenges, joys and sorrows known only to themselves and to God. But their story was and is part of a story much greater than their individual lives, greater than their work or achievements.  Their life story includes the effect and influence they had on each of us and the many people who came into contact with them. It includes the good that still lives on in the world because of their presence in it. And in this sense they continue to live on in us and those they influenced and where they are we are too for the unity we share surely cannot end with death. It 's too great a reality for that.

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You're An Angel

5/10/2015

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Have you ever had that said to you or said it of someone else?  We all know what we mean by it but what exactly are angels?  I've been aware of them this week because I was at the launch of an exhibition entitled Heavenly Creatures at St Mungo' Museum of Religious Life and Art. Most of the depictions were of heavenly beings with wings, offering protection and guidance to mere humans. A learned professor gave a talk on angels and said we all want there to be angels, even if we're not too sure who or what they are.

The Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures are peppered with angels. In the Bible they are seen as God's messengers and often announce the birth of a prophet like Samson, Isaac, John the Baptist, Jesus. In the biblical accounts each of these births was unexpected. Isaac's mother Sarah was beyond the age of child bearing and didn't believe the news that she would bear a child in her old age; John's father Zechariah was struck dumb because he didn't believe the angel telling him his wife, Elizabeth, would also bear a child in old age;  Mary on the other hand believed the announcement that she would have a child even though she was a virgin. This idea of a miraculous conception or birth is not unknown in other religions even where angels don't have a prominent place. The Lord Krishna in Hinduism, the Lord Buddha in Buddhism had unusual conceptions and displayed supernatural characteristics when they were born as did  Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism who was born laughing.  Like all scriptures it's not what these stories say but what they mean that's important. The stories are much more about the significance of the babies who grow up to reveal an important spiritual message than about the details of their conceptions and births.  They show that these miraculous events are an initiative of God and a gift to humanity. 

Angels are also seen as protectors and some religions like Zoroastrianism, Judaiam Christianity and Islam  believe in the idea of guardan angels, Each individual, nation has a particular angel  though in Islam there is an angel to the left and right of individuals recording their good and bad deeds as well as one before and behind. This gives a sense of being surrounded by spiritual beings who are loving and caring which can be a comforing notion even if secularists would tell us it's an illusion.  Perhaps it's in this sense that we want to believe in angels and perhaps it's this desire for comfort that makes them so popular today even with those who have no religious affiliation.  


But are they real?  Well, I have no idea but somehow it doesn't matter because it's the meaning behind them that matters. For me the meaning is that we are surrounded by energies that are beyond our human perception, that we can call upon this energy whenever we need it, that we have a spirit and influence which is greater than our visible appearance. Angels are a symbol, a metaphor for the life, energy and love of God that religious people believe surrounds everyone. The idea of a guardian angel helps us get behind outward appearances to see the hidden depths within people,  that  hidden spiritual dimension that Gerard Manely Hopkins calls ' the dearest friendship deep down things'.

One of my community told a story about angels.  She had been looking for a location for a creation spirituality centre and was looking for a rural beauty spot. Most of the ones she found were too expensive so she was beginning to despair of ever finding a place. On retreat she had an intuition of the Angel of Liverpool (where she lived)  whom she understood as sad and rather depressed and determined to make friends with her. She did this and eventually set up her centre in Liverpool. This idea of making friends with the angel of Liverpool makes sense to me. To make friends with the spirit of a person or place helps us see the person, place, organisation or whatever in a new light.  We can recognise their hidden depths, fears, cares, joys, loves etc and this can then make it easier to relate to them.  I like the idea of making friends with people's angels, of making friends with my own angel. Being aware of my angel helps get  me in touch with my intuition, my inner wisdom, my good spirit and in that sense my angel is a protector, encourager and inspirer.  So in that sense I'm happy to say I believe in angels. 

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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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