Fr. Massignon on Reconciliation...

Fr. Louis Massignon’s clear message to effect peaceful relations and reconciliation with those of other faith traditions is to begin by opening our own minds and hearts to conquer our fear of differences. He spoke often of the need to “cross over” to the “other”, to learn their language, study their beliefs, practices and culture as the beginning of mutual respect and understanding. In the process of learning to truly know others, from the inside out so to speak, we find that our own values and belief systems become more defined and clear. Our faith experience is enhanced rather than diminished. The goal of “substutionary prayer”, of “Badaliyya”, is to see the face of Christ in every human person and learn to love them as Christ loves us.

As Christians we are challenged to overcome centuries of misinformation and prejudice that we have sometimes even unconsciously absorbed. In one of his books the Fransiscan Fr. Giulio Basetti-Sani writes about his own journey of studying the condemning writings of the scholars of his time about Islam and Muhammad and approaching Louis Massignon with those ideas. He wrote:

“Once, when Professor Massignon was in Cairo, I went to see him at the French Institute of Oriental Archeology.... Only someone who has known Massignon can fully imagine his reaction to my ideas. His usual grave expression changed to a smile like the lighting of a lamp and his eyes twinkled. He said, ‘The medieval world taught that Muhammad was a messenger of Satan and that the Allah of the Qur’an was not the God of Abraham. We should not do to others what we would not have them do to us’.

Basetti-Sani quotes much more than this as he describes how, following Massignon’s advice, he began to move in a totally different direction in what became years of Islamic studies. He wrote: “Islam is a mystery linked with the blessing obtained by Abraham from God for his son Ishmael and Ishmael’s progeny. This line of thought, derived from the Bible, is the one to take in order to grasp the significance of Islam.... Before we parted, Massignon gave me two thoughts meant as guidelines in my reorientation, one from St. Augustine, ‘ Love sees with new eyes.’ and the other from St. John of the Cross, ‘ Where there is no love put love, and you will find Love Himself’. It was true, my eyes had seen badly... Later, when my eyes were to see clearly, I would discover in Islam and the Muslims the reflections of the infinite goodness of God”. (From Basetti-Sani.1977. “The Koran In the Light of Christ”)

On the Silence of God...

It is necessary that we find the silence of God not only in ourselves but also in one another. Unless some other person speaks to us in words that spring from God and communicate with the silence of God in our souls, we remain isolated in our own silence, from which God tends to withdraw.

The inner silence depends on a continual crying in the night, a repeated bending over the abyss. If we cling to a silence we think we have found forever, we stop seeking God and the silence goes dead within us. (Thomas Merton)

A Short Reflection on Poverty...

The poorest person in a religious community is not necessarily the one who has the fewesat objects assigned for his /her use. Poverty is not merely a matter of having "things". It is an attitude which leads us to renounce some of the advantages which come from the use of things.

A person can possess nothing, but attach great importance to the personal satisfaction and enjoyment he/she wants to get out of things which are common to all.

Often the poorest person in the community is the one who is at everybody else dispostion. He/She can be used by all and never takes time to do anything special for him/herself. (Thomas Merton)

Dhikr for the 26th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: "There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores" (Luke 16: 19-21).

Meditation: The parable is a strong reminder to us that we cannot continue to dress in purple garments and dine sumptuously without the poor partaking at our table... Beware!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

"Substitutionary Prayer"

Hi Folks!
Peace! Continuing our reflect on the call to “substitutionary prayer” we can follow Louis Massignon’s own suggestion to turn to Blessed Charles de Foucauld and Saint Francis of Assisi for inspiration and enlightenment.

At Tamanrasset in the southern Algerian desert Foucauld realized that he needed to know and understand the Touareg people in order to truly live with them. In fact he wanted to assimilate himself into their way of life, in a sense to “become Touareg”. Not only did he allow himself to eat what those to whom he dedicated his life ate but he learned their language as intimately as they knew it, as well as their history, traditions, folklore, poetry and beliefs.”To make oneself understand is the beginning of everything, in order to do something good”, he wrote. “It isn’t enough to pray for the salvation of others, nor even to lovingingly give oneself to them, but to offer oneself body and soul for their souls”.

“This is how Foucauld saw the sacrifice of Jesus at Golgotha; Christ so loved humanity that he offered himself as a voluntary victim for the expiation of the sin of the world. “There is no greater proof of love than to give one’s life for those we love”, He told the apostles at the Last Supper. Substituting himself for humanity, past, present and future, He had reconciled them to God for eternity. Yet the Passion of Christ, the mystery of the economy of Salvation, consumed and carried out once and for all, will last until the end of human history. Thus, if we truly love, only one way offers itself to us: to participate in His redemptive work and accept the sacrifice of ourselves”.

“Brother Charles’ impeccable logic brought him to this conclusion before which all human reason either resists or gives way; Before God, Christians must substitute themselves for others and take the burden of their sin or their blindness onto their own shoulders in order to participate in the liberation of captive souls...”

Brother Charles’ writings are filled with the theology of his time and yet his message remains profoundly revolutionary.By choosing to live as he did he defined and witnessed to a new attitude for Christians in the world. He defined lay Christians as apostles of Christ and demonstrated how they were to be shining witnesses to the Gospel message. He was a pioneer who planted the seeds for a transformation of monastic life as well as lay participation, by remaining paradoxically entirely faithful to the tradition and the Gospel message.

It is clear that those who enter into the Badaliya prayer will be challenged by Brother Charles’ life and witness, and in creating this prayer in 1934 Louis Massignon was presenting a way to rise to that challenge. Our time and our world is both radically different and yet sadly the same. May these reflections serve to aid our prayer together and help us to open our hearts and minds to truly understand those of other faiths, traditions and cultures. May we be guided in planting our own seeds of hope in the world. (Source: Dorothy Buck)

Dhikr for the 25th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" (Luke 6: 9)

Meditation: Jesus is challenging us our values and priority…He reminds us that PERSON comes first…in whatever we do and think… and to prefer to give life and to do good over the restrictive confines of the law…!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Remembrance for the 24th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: “So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15: 20)

Meditation: The Father shows COMPASSION … RUNS TO MEET THE ERRING SON, EMBRACES HIM AND KISSES HIM… No question asked and NO recrimination and condemnation!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Dhikr for the 22nd week in ordinary time (C)

Text: "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." (Luke 14: 12-13)

Meditation: The Gospel is a strong challenge and a reminder to us all to ensure that the poor and the hungry do have places at our table!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...

3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life.

Dhikr for the 21st week in ordinary time (C)

Text: “Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” (Luke 13: 23-24)

Meditation: To enter the Kingdom of God is not a question of strength and merit… No one is strong enough…and neither anyone is meritorious enough to win to Kingdom! It is a GIFT… so pray to begin this gift. The Kingdom is God’s gratuitous offer to all…!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life.

Beware of Idolatry...

The Old Testament reminds us that Idolatry makes us as lifeless as the idols that are worshipped...

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
Eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
Noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
Feet, but do not walk;
And they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them are like them;
So are all who trust in them.
(Psalm 115: 4-8)

Experiencing our own "Nothingness"...

What does it mean to know and experience our own "nothingness"? It is
not enough to turn away in disgust from my illusions and faults and
mistakes, to separate myself from them as if they were not, and as if
I were someone other than myself. This kind of :self-annihilation"
is only a worse illusion, it is a pretended humility which, by saying
"I am nothing" I mean in effect " I wish I were not what I am.

To really know our "nothingness" we must also love it. And we cannot
love it unless we see that it is good. And we cannot see that it is
good unless we accept it.


A supernatural experience of our contingency is a humility which loves
and prizes above all else our state of helplessness before God. We
must see and admit that it is all ours and that it is all good: good
in its positive entity since it comes from God.


The proud man/woman loves his/her own illusion and sel-sufficiency.
The spiritually poor loves his/her very insufficiency. The proud
claims honor for having what no one else has. The humble begs for a
share in what everybody else has received. He/She too desires to be
filled to overflowing with the kindness and mercy of God.
(Thomas Merton)

Dhikr for the 20th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! (Luke 12: 49-50)

Meditation: Jesus spoke of his own Baptism of fire – his suffering, death and resurrection that other may have life… It is the fire that burns yet purifies. The fire in our life is always the symbol of energy and zeal. Hold on to that fire else we become a "dead man/woman" walking…

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the text in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

To Wander in Hope...

To wander in hope, we must walk with people even at times we start off by walking in the wrong direction… Auschwitz is, often, described as the “end of the line”… Yet, even in this hell, there were persons like Edith Stein (St. Theresa Benedicta) who in their utter powerlessness walked around and gave their flickering light showing God's presence that gave hope to his people in their despair.

People Living in HOPE....

"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." (Vaclav Havel)

Hope is the conviction that all that we live for, happiness and sorrow, victory and defeat, will be found to have some sense. Despite the LUNACY of the realities we often find ourselves... life is NOT doomed to absurdity! It is the ultimate and unimaginable victory of MEANING!

The Heart of Religion and the Heart of God...

What I should like to talk about has to do more with religion in general than with spirituality in particular: my subject is the heart of religion and the heart of God. I would like to share a story, if this were a sermon, would be absolutely the right one.

Some of you will know "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, a novel about the migration of dispossessed small croppers from the state of Oklahoma to the vineyards of California. Their small and rather meager livelihood has been destroyed by capital financing making for large ranches that dispossessed the intimate peasantry.

They are trekking to a vision of a future in California. In the course of the journey old Grandpa Joad dies – a poor old man, his health undermined by the tribulations of his journey. They have no money for funerals, so they decide to bury him by the wayside. And then it occurs to them that they may be incurring suspicion of some foul play and, wanting to come clean, they say, “Let’s put a little notice on the grave: ‘Old Grandpa Joad died of natural causes. Old, decrepit, sick. His folks buried him.’” And so they get a piece of wood and fix on it their notice. It is all so intensely pathetic.

Travelling with them there is a derelict preacher who has attached himself to their party – a rather faded renegade pastor – and they say to him as a kind of afterthought, and this is the heart of it, “Couldn’t you put somepin [something] on it so that it’ll be religious? A text for example – ‘The Lord is my shepherd’, or maybe a snatch of a hymn – ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’? Put somepin on it” – the notice that is – “so that it’ll be religious.”

Now, it seems fair to ask, What does that little text add to the integrity, the pathos, the good faith, the poverty, the suffering, the tragedy of that situation? What does it have to add? Is there not something already profoundly religious in all those qualities of good faith and integrity and a certain quiet heroism in the bearing of suffering?

You will all, I think, agree that the text has nothing basically to add to the solid religious quality of the situation and their behavior. But if they had not wanted the text, would they have been that sort of people? The answer surely has to be “No”. It was by association with “the arms of Jesus” or “the Lord is my shepherd”, through the tradition of their family worship that they had come to be that sort of people, wanting to behave with integrity, finding a certain nobility in the midst of poverty and standing in a reverent awe in the presence of their mortality. And in all those ways they are profoundly religious. There is a paradox present. The text that is added is the key to what is already there.

The point of this story is to have us capture the interrelationship between the worship that we bring and the behavior that we come by, or put another way, the heart of God and the heart of the believer. There has always been this interrelation between faith and faithful.

Spirituality is what believers find it and fulfill it to be, but how do we know them as believers except by their belonging to religion? It is like a circle. Come into the religion and you reach those who profess it. Meet those who profess it and you come into the knowledge of their faith. And this, of course, is true about all religions. So the point of the story is to have us think about how religions can fulfil authentic compassion in human society.

Now we come to the verse, in Sura 50 (Surat Qaf) 37: Inna fi dhalika la-dhikra li-man kana lahu qalb aw alqa al-samc wa huwa shahid, which translates: “Here verily is a reminder for him who has a heart, or gives ear with full intelligence” (Pickthall). It could be put into more literary, resonant English as: “A thing to ponder here for whoever has a heart, and who heeds with alert perception.” The passage is clearly talking about (1) a feeling heart, (2) a hearing mind and (3) a present self. These three belong together. But what is the context of “Here is something to reflect upon”? The context is human tragedy. (Kenneth Cragg)

Remembrance Prayer for the 18th week in ordinary time (C)

Dhikr for the 18th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: "Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all
greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of
possessions." (Luke 12: 15)

Meditation: Often, we measure the person's worth by his/her
possession... We are wrong! The most important is to be rich in what
matters to God...

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your
heart.
2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind -
RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life.

Dhikr for the 17th week in ordinary time (C)

Text: "And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11: 9-10)

Meditation: We need to hold on to our belief… they are the basis of our HOPE and do not tire in praying, asking, seeking and knocking…

Visit
www.badaliyya.blogspot.com
www.omigen.org/ipid
www.scbrc.net

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Dhikr for the 16th week in ordinary time (C)

Dhikr for the 16th week of the ordinary year (C)

Text: “There is need only for one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” (Luke 10: 41-41)

Meditation: Like Martha, we are, often, burdened with so many worries… and forget what is very important… to simply accompany someone and listen.

Visit

www.badaliyya.blogspot.com
www.omigen.org/ipid
www.scbrc.net

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
1. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
2. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Remembrance for he 15th week in ordinary time (C)

Dhikr for the 15th week of the ordinary year (C)

Text: "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10: 29)

Meditation: The parable of the Good Samaritan challenges us to “REVISE” our understanding of neighbor… The person in need is a neighbor to us… and people who need us most are our special neighbor…

Visit
www.badaliyya.blogspot.com
www.omigen.org/ipid
www.scbrc.net

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2.Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
3.Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

The Silence of God...

It is necessary that we find the silence of God not only in ourselves but also in one another. Unless some other person speaks to us in words that spring from God and communicate with the silence of God in our souls, we remain isolated in our own silence from which God tends to withdraw. For inner silence depends on a continual seeking, a continual crying in the night, a repeated bending over the abyss.

If we cling to a silence we think we have found forever, we stop seeking God and the silence goes dead within us. A silence in which God is no longer sought ceases to speak to Him. A silence from which God does not seem to be absent, dangerously threatens God's continued presence. For God is found when He is sought and when He is no longer sought God escapes us.

He is heard only when we hope to hear Him, and if, thinking our hope to be fulfilled, we cease to speak to be vivid and becomes dead, even though we recharge it with the echo of our own emotional noise. (Thomas Merton)