May 5, 2024.
Dear Friends,
We will gather together remotely for our Badaliya and Peace Islands Institute faith sharing on Sunday, May 5, 2024 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Please join us on Zoom, or in spirit, as we encourage Inter-faith relations and pray together for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, especially in Israel and Palestine; for an end to the violence in the West Bank, a ceasefire of the war in Gaza and an end to war as a solution to the many conflicts in our world, especially in the Ukraine. Our prayers are on-going for all the victims of human-created violence as well as natural disasters and for the many humanitarian groups risking their own lives to offer much-needed aid.
In this 6th week of the Easter Season, Christians continue to journey through the experiences of the earliest followers of Jesus as they reflect on the meaning of the events of his death, resurrection and his extraordinary appearances among them before he made his final Ascension, his return to Eternal Life.in Divine Love. In all three Synoptic Gospels and in the 4th Gospel according to John, we have heard in different Gospel accounts how Jesus appeared first to the women, who had followed Jesus from Galilee and returned to the burial site only to find an empty tomb. Then, in another, two women, Mary Magdalen and "the other Mary" discover the "empty tomb" and are met by Jesus on the road. In another, it was Mary of Magdala who, mistaking him for a gardener near his empty tomb, recognized him when he called her by name. Mary Magdalen is included in all four accounts. When two disciples were on the road to Emmaus, a stranger joined them and described all the Biblical accounts that referred to Jesus. They too did not recognize him until he disappeared from their midst after blessing the bread and wine when they shared a meal. In each of these accounts those disciples who had not had these experiences did not believe either Mary Magdalen and the other women or the disciples on the road to Emmaus until the moment when they too experienced Jesus appearing before them in the locked room in Jerusalem where they were hidden.
We too have a hard time believing these Gospel Stories until we also experience the presence of Divine Love in our own lives. more them 2000 years later. In this 6th week of unpacking these events, that the Church calls "Mysteries", we hear the accounts of how the Gospel message spread throughout the known Hellenistic world of the time attracting followers from all walks of life, both Gentiles and Jews, to this risen Jewish healer from Galilee. From one episode to another of Jesus' encounters with others during his lifetime among us we experience the manifestation of the compassionate actions of Divine Love, healing, seeing the humanity in everyone, welcoming every person into a transforming life journey. In his resurrected appearances to the women and the disciples, failing to recognize him helps us to realize how we too may not recognize him in the least of our brothers and sisters or in those who are suffering the most in our war-torn world. Our belief, that can become authentic faith, rarely happens until our hearts too are "burning as we walk on our own roads to Emmaus" and become open to a new recognition of the Divine in the midst of our very banal daily lives. Today we hear Jesus speaking to the disciples and all of us:
"This is my commandment: Love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than to lay down his life for one's friends..... It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain..."
We are being asked to overcome our doubt and fear and recognize that we are loved into being unconditionally, meant to be just who we are, so that we can in turn love others as we have been loved. Not only that, but we are called to recognize that this Gospel message is meant for everyone born into this world without any distinctions.
This message of unconditional love is what inspired St. Charles de Foucauld to give his life to Christ; to go out into the Algerian Sahara desert and offer his life for the Muslim Berber Touareg tribes living there, His mentorship and friendship with Louis Massignon inspired the Badaliya prayer movement. Foucauld's Easter prayer states:
May this victory over death fills us with joy and confidence. May we, in the image of Mary Magdalen recognize the living presence in our lives, and let this Light shine all around us.
In the March issue of the North American Lay Fraternities of Charles de Foucauld, F. Leonard Tighe describes the deeper meaning of Brother Charles' use of Jesus Caritas as a "logos" of his spiritual legacy. He wrote:
"Sometimes we translate the word Caritas into the English word Love, but it may not be a correct rendering of the actual hidden meaning into the English. The Latin word Caritas is a unique way and form of Christian love. Caritas is self-giving love....Caritas comes from the heart united in prayer to God. ...When Charles de Foucauld added Caritas to the name of Jesus, it was his own personal experience of the man he loved." Father Tighe reminds us that the offering of one's life to Jesus is offering our life to the person of Jesus, not to a "theological principal or dogma." Falling in love is not an intellectual choice as much as it is an experience in one's heart. "The person of Jesus in the four gospels is the one that Charles de Foucauld fell in love with. "It is by loving people that we learn to love God". wrote St. Charles de Foucauld
In all three Abrahamic traditions repentance for our failures and weaknesses is experienced. In Judaism the special days of Atonement, in Christianity the ritual cleansing of Baptism, Reconciliation and the 40 days of Lent, in Islam the month of Ramadan Fasting. The Christian experience of unconditional Love is intrinsically connected to our theme of Mercy in last month's faith sharing gathering. Perhaps what Christians come to recognize is that the more we feel loved and are filled with love, compassion and empathy for others, the more we feel repentance for our own failures to love, and ultimately, have no desire, nor even the capacity, to inflict pain or suffering on others. This is the transformative power of Love to cast out fear and hatred.
When we turn to the understanding of Divine Love in Islam, we discover some differences with the Christian understanding of that self-giving, unconditional love. In an article called "The Concept of Divine and Human Love in Islam" Hashnain Farishta explains the difference:
"The idea of unconditional love is against the principle of divine justice according to which all beings are to be rewarded according to their own efforts and deeds. It is important to remember that although one of God’s attributes is anger (“ghadab”), its application is much more limited in comparison to the mercy and love He shows for all the realities of which He is the originator. Indeed, in dua “Jawshan al Kabir”, God is referred to as “the One whose mercy preceded His anger“.
The Qur’an says: “O my servants who have committed injustice to themselves, Do not despair of the mercy of God. God certainly forgives all sins. He is All-forgiving and All-merciful” (39:53).
In many verses of the Qur’an, God speaks about the possibility of repenting and returning to Him: “But whoever repents after his iniquity and reforms [himself], then surely Allah will turn to him [mercifully]; surely Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Merciful” (5:39).
There are also many commentaries on the 99 Attributes of the Divine such as this one published in an article in the Spring of 2004 by a British Palestinian woman, Amira Abdin who wrote:
What concerns us here, however, is the attribute, or the name the Loving, Al- Wahud, Al-Muhib. Muslims believe that God is so loving that He recreated His attribute of love as an instinct in us. Hence true love is part of God's love, and it is our duty to love one another truly, as indeed He loves us."
Can we imagine a world where the human desire for power over others and creation would be entirely transformed into the instinct of love within us to end all war and conflict by the power of that Divine Love within us? It requires Badaliya, the ability to Love one another as we have been loved so that we too can lay down our lives for one another.
Peace to you,
Dorothy
See www.dcbuck.com for all past letters to the Badaliya and Peace Islands