Badal: Louis Massignon
1. Charity. It is an active and
sensitive charity. Solidarity understood
as the ability to suffer with those who suffer injustice. It is an attempt to liberate … at least to
know how to protest with sorrow. It is
to accompany the poor with help and sympathy. Charity is shown with great
delicate respect to a person before many and varied religious option.
2. Figure of Abraham. The figure of Abraham is a mystery of
election and exclusion. Is it also a
mystery of acceptance and a mystery of rejection? Ismael vs. Israel, David and Paul… Hadith has it: “No one is truly a believer
until one prefers not for his brother what one prefers for himself.”
3. Badal – Substitution. Louis
Massignon had “discovered” the reality of BADAL – Substitution for the
reparation of injustices and for witnessing to the poor and victims of
injustices. Substitution demands an
offer of the total self – similar to the test of fire. The witness “par excellence” is the one who
does complete or offered as a total ransom that is lacking in truth that God
knows… Massignon found this in the life and martyrdom of Husayn at Kerbala in
the Shi’a Theology. Husayn is the
vivification of the mystery of redemption.
- The Ram in place of Isaac
- The Paschal Lamb for the first
born of Israel
- The tribe of Levi for the nation
of Israel
- Jesus for humanity.
4. Examples used by Fr. Louis Massignon…
- The demand on the part of
Christians at Najran
- The offer of St. Francis at
Damietta
- The Desire of St. Raymund of Lull
- The acceptance of Fr. Massignon
mystically to become Badal…
In their lives, each person is assumed by Christ, ransomed by him
and in return they assume and ransom others … assuming unto themselves all
others and standing in the place of others notwithstanding their weaknesses
before the mystery of God through via dolorosa unto the violent death of the
cross.
5. Values Lived by Badal…
- Hospitality. He discovered hospitality when wounded
in battle and cared for by Muslims.
“I had been saved in the Muslim land by the virtue of the
obligation of sanctuary lived heroically by my Muslim hosts
notwithstanding the espionage and betrayal that they denounced before
me.” He discovered that in Islam the priority of sanctuary is over the
obligation of the just war. The praxis of hospitality made Massignon
understand the sense of Abrahamic faith – communicated not by logic but
by living intuition emerging from a life lived in their midst. “I share the trust of the Muslims in
the God of hospitality.” The
hospitality of Abraham is the sign that announces the final end of
gathering all nations. The host is God’s envoy. He is the person that welcomes
strangers, heals the sick, clothes the naked…
- Person is a Shahid (witness). In
Islam the person is above all a witness.
The Semitic language is a language of witness. Spirituality is intimately linked to
language – which one speaks.
- The Person in Prayer - Dhikr (through
Remembrance of God).
Bapa Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI
Badaliyya
- Philippines
Prayer Session - January 26th, 2017
