The Badaliyya Tradition…
By
Dorothy C. Buck
In
1934 a renowned French Catholic Islamic scholar and an Egyptian Christian woman
also prayed together before the altar of a Franciscan
Church in Damietta , Egypt .
In a passionate plea to the God of Abraham, father of Jews, Christians, and
Muslims, they made a vow to dedicate their lives to pray for the Muslim people,
to stand before God for them.
As
a young man, Louis Massignon had lost interest in his Christian heritage. After
an unusual conversion experience while on an archeological mission in Baghdad he became a devout
Roman Catholic believer. Through years of research in the Arab world he came to
love his Muslim friends and colleagues.
Mary
Kahil was a Melkite Christian who grew up in Cairo , Egypt
where she became active in the Muslim women's political and social causes.
Louis
discovered the roots of his spirituality and his faith life in his belief that
to be a follower of Christ we must substitute our own lives for the salvation
of others as Jesus did.
Thus
the vow that Louis and Mary made in Damietta
on February 9th, 1934 was grounded in a deep conviction of the heart, a call to
what Louis named the Badaliyya, an Arabic word meaning substitution.
In
1947 Louis Massignon and Mary Kahil received official approval from Rome for the statutes of
the Badaliyya. They attracted many members in Cairo as well as those joining in solidarity
with them, like Cardinal Montini, the future Pope Paul Vl, and many others in
monasteries and church communities around the world.
In
the statutes they agreed to pray for the Muslims, to treat them with respect,
affection and kindness, and to personally live the gospel message of love in their
daily lives. Like Mary they devoted themselves to the Muslim community by volunteering
in organizations where they could live out the spirit intended by the Badaliyya.
They
met once a week for an hour. Guided by his relationship with Charles de
Foucauld, Massignon invited them to begin their gatherings with a prayer in
solitude before the altar called adoration. Then they read
the spiritual writings of Foucauld or others, and ended by praying together.
Louis
Massignon's understanding of what he called mystical substitution traced back to
earlier church traditions. The many saints who were often martyrs for their
faith were said to unite their sufferings and death with the passion and death
of Christ. In the medieval church some
extraordinary mystics felt called to pray to take onto themselves the physical and
emotional afflictions of those who came to them for healing.
These
examples seem far from our contemporary experience of faith and appear
exaggerated and foreign. Yet, Louis Massignon's vision of such immense love of
God,
even at the expense of one's own life or health, evolved into a profound and
intense spirituality of compassion for others.
In
a letter written on January 16, 1955 to Mary Kahil he described the spirit of
the
Badaliyya:
(All Massignon references are from L'Hospitalité Sacrée, Ed. Jacques Keryell, 1987. Author's
translation.)
"...They
say that the Badaliyya is an illusion because we cannot put ourselves in the place
of another, and that it is a lover's dream. It is necessary to respond that
this is not a dream but rather a suffering that one receives without choosing
it, and through which we conceive grace. It is the visitation [by the spirit of
God], hidden in the depth of the anguish of compassion, which seizes us as an
entrance into the reign of God. It certainly appears powerless, yet it requires
everything, and the One on the cross who shares it with us transfigures it on
the last day. It is suffering the pains of humanity together with those who have
no other pitiful companion than us."
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