St. Francis' "Dark Night"
by Cassandra Newman
May 21, 2007 - On a warm Monday evening at the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church dining hall, Father Bob Menard, a short, wiry man with wide blue eyes and an impish laugh, called a mixed audience of Muslim and Catholic attendees to attention. Having gorged themselves on conversation and a smorgasbord of Middle Eastern and South Asian delicacies, the participants had almost forgotten the small band of priests and Muslim clerics at the helm of this latest interreligious gathering. In a tremulous voice, Father Bob stated, "Our hope is that dialogues will take place not just in this area, but in various communities." He recalled a meeting earlier this spring between Pope Benedict XVI and former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami. During their discussion, the two leaders had paused to reflect on the ability of serene dialogue infused with a spirit of dignity and mutual respect to overcome differences.
"In order to engage at the level we hope to get to," Father Bob said, "We must hear each other and begin to trust each other to the point where we can listen."
"This," he added with a broad sweep of the hand, "is a small step in that process."
To be sure, the level of commitment to interfaith dialogue and relationship-building among various participants that evening reflected the aspirations that Father Bob had expressed. Many, like Zenith Muhammad, a mother of four and part-time advisor to a Muslim youth group in Washington, D.C., had traveled long distances to reach the great stone church with striking stained glass windows in Triangle, Virginia. Zenith had come all the way from Maryland and was going to return home after the dialogue. Others, such as a Catholic named Sandy, weathered negative questions and comments from appalled friends and relatives. A native of Oklahoma, Sandy recalled that when she mentioned this dialogue to her family they inquired, "Why are you coming to this? They (Muslims) are not a peaceful people." This new spirit of enthusiasm against the odds gave me pause to reflect on past Catholic-Muslim dialogues that the Catholic Diocese of Arlington's Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Commission had sponsored and how far we had come.
I remember that the first dialogue held on October 16, 2006 in a small downstairs room at the Adams Center, a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Sterling, Virginia, was a rather awkward affair. As the event took place during Ramadan, an Islamic holiday of fasting and reflective prayer, very few Muslims attended. This resulted in a somewhat disturbing imbalance of Catholic and Muslim participants. The tone was cordial but hesitant. Memories of the offensive Muhammad cartoons in Denmark, with the extreme global reactions and hotly debated questions of inter-cultural sensitivity that they provoked, still lingered in many people's minds. The Catholic participants asked questions about the Islamic faith to Imam Sheikh Lamptey, a Ghanian cleric with a soft voice and twinkling brown eyes, while some young Muslim students offered answers and insights into their theology. The entire evening coincided with that night's set of Islamic prayers and discussion was often interrupted by a recorded Arabic call to prayer over the loudspeaker. Each long ululated version of Allahu akbar seemed to send a subtle shudder among many of the Catholic participants.
After a lengthy interval, the second event took place on March 26, 2007 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Vienna, Virginia. My initial impression of this dialogue was that the comfort level of the participants had risen gradually, but not enough to sustain prolonged personal interaction without the guidance of imams and priests. At one point, a woman wearing a flowing black robe and veil that covered everything but her eyes sat at my table. When she realized that there were more Catholics than Muslims seated there, she swiftly rose and retreated to a table that had mostly Muslims. To the quiet objections of some, that evening's pre-dinner prayer was segregated, with Muslims remaining in the dining room and Catholics retiring to the chapel. More small talk took place during a sumptuous Arab feast, but overall it was a night that belonged mainly to the clergy. At the beginning of the evening, all participants were asked to write down a series of questions they had about Islam or Catholicism on a half-sheet of paper. After dinner Father Bob, Father Donald J. Rooney of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia and Imam Johari of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia each took turns answering the questions which addressed such topics as Islamic culture, the role of Jesus Christ in both Christianity and Islam and the dress code of Muslim women. This information session effectively ended all personal discussions amongst the attendees, although many came away from it with phone numbers and business cards of people they would normally have never spoken to.
Now, St. Francis' dialogue seemed to mark a turning point. Quoting Pope John Paul II, Father Bob declared, "Interreligious dialogue is most effective when the participants live in one community."
He concluded, "Our objective is to achieve a level of justice and solidarity to truly reflect our worship of God, especially when dealing with the poor."
With that, the night's presentations on the subjects of Jesus Christ and Muhammed's ascensions into Heaven and what they meant for Catholics and Muslims, respectively, commenced. After a short pause to catch his breath, Father Bob gave a short talk for the Catholic side. He stated that Christ's ascension, as recounted in the Gospel, was first and foremost an "article of belief" in Catholicism that was not open to scientific explanation. The Sunday mass was an affirmation of Catholics' faith that, after His descent into Hell, Jesus conquered sin, death, evil and sickness to reach Heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father. The spiritual goal of the faithful was to imitate this journey "in some movement of life, death, new life," and eventual entry into Heaven for a place by the Father's side. Lastly, Christ's ascension also served as a "call to the believer to descend to the depths of his heart to correct [spiritual] ailments and rise to the level of a godly life."
After Father Bob took his seat, Abu Nahidian of the Manassas Mosque and Imam Lamptey addressed Muhammed's ascension as recalled in Chapter 17 of the Quran. The ascension story in Islam relates how the angel Gabriel took Muhammed on a journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and to Heaven, where he had the privilege of meeting Jesus and Moses. From a theological standpoint, the purpose of this journey was twofold: Muhammed's ascension affirmed the truth of God's message and signified the importance of worship. The latter was especially important because God had created humankind to recognize and worship Him, as exemplified by His statement in the Quran: "There was a hidden treasure and I wanted it to be known." The Prophet's being brought before His presence illustrated God's centrality on both Heaven and Earth. On a relational level, Muhammed's stop in Jerusalem, a common place of worship for many Muslims, Jews and Christians, was a testament to the connection between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. All three religions shared the ultimate goal of entry into Heaven. "If we move together, there is ascension for all of us," said Abu Nahidian.
At the close of the ascension talks, all participants were given the option to attend different dialogues taking place in various classrooms in the St. Francis school. I chose the "Stages in Spiritual Life" discussion in the Resource Room that compared the steps of spiritual direction taken by Catholics and Muslims. St. Francis' pastor Father Charles Miller and Imam Lamptey were to preside over the dialogue. After settling into tiny wooden desks that barely accommodated most of us, we were treated to Father Charlie's explanation of the Catholic stages. Spiritual direction was a process much like a "plant going from a seed to a tree," he told us. That process involved an emptying phase, in which the believer relinquished all control and willfulness, and a fulfilling phase wherein he had completely surrendered to the will of God. Before emptying, the believer was in a state of sin characterized by alienation, isolation, selfishness and materialism. Later, the senses and the soul aided the emptying process that enabled the believer to reach a state of surrender marked by compassion, fulfillment and liberation.
A large part of this change was the "dark night," a term used to describe the act of losing all selfish achievements and prior perceptions of God, the world and oneself to attain spiritual enlightenment. The ultimate goal was a relationship without possessions, violence or self-centered behavior that allowed one to be a part of the universe in peace and harmony without losing his distinctiveness.
In like manner, Imam Lamptey's explanation of the Islamic stages involved personal transformation as a mode of reaching union with God and the rest of humanity. When a person was born, he indicated, that individual was a "pure soul." However, life's circumstances threatened that purity by introducing greed, "backbiting," arrogance and infidelity.
This first selfish stage in Islamic spiritual direction was called Amara. The second phase, Lawwama, was marked by the believer's recognition of his falling prey to these habits and his subsequent self-reproach. Therein lay the jihad, or the believer's constant struggle to overcome temptations and the behaviors that separated him from God in the first place.
"This," Imam Lamptey remarked pointedly, "is the real jihad."
The believer's victory over his selfish desires characterized the final stage, called Mutmainna. This triumph placed the believer above other souls still struggling or indulging in temptation and enabled him to understand what "life [was] about." As a newly "satisfied soul," his behavior would be that of a prophet, choosing peace over retaliation and seeking happiness in a realm beyond the material. For Muslims, Jesus Christ was the perfect example of Mutmainna in action. However, this last phase was not a successful culmination of inner struggle but rather another process of continuous self-improvement that the transformed believer must follow. In spite of whatever spiritual enlightenment one had attained, life still presented challenges and temptations. For example, an obscene gesture during a traffic jam could very easily endanger a believer's spiritual satisfaction.
"[In that instance,] you might be a prophet for just five minutes," Father Charlie remarked. The attendees chuckled heartily.
At the conclusion of Imam Lamptey's presentation, participants were invited to ask questions or make comments about what they had just learned. A recent convert to Islam named Diane inquired how she could practice spiritual generosity towards her mother, an 85 year-old Pentecostal woman whose constant expressions of acerbic dismay over her conversion tempted her to react in a less than forgiving manner.
Imam Lamptey replied, "You know why she does that? Because she loves you. The one who is loved is the one who is most disturbed. You need to move beyond it."
At that point, a Catholic named Joe stood up and indicated that he could understand what Diane was feeling. His Southern Baptist parents had also criticized him for his conversion to Catholicism. Another Muslim woman admitted that she herself had experienced negative thoughts and feelings when her mother converted to Christianity. She had sought counsel from another to be able to accept the conversion. For a series of events that had begun so tenuously, it was interesting, if not refreshing, to see Muslim and Catholic participants beginning to find commonality with one another.
More discussion would have occurred had the call to evening prayers not been sounded. Father Rooney was to lead Catholic prayers in the dining hall, while Imam Lamptey would conduct the Muslim prayer in the school gymnasium. To my delighted surprise, Catholics and Muslims who wanted to attend each other's prayer sessions were invited to do so. I shuffled quietly into the gym along with about fifteen other Catholics to observe rows of Muslim believers kneeling and standing in tandem with Imam Lamptey's sung recitations. Eventually, my eye fell upon three Catholics, two women and one man, who were actually participating in the prayer with their Muslim peers and imitating every movement and gesture that it called for without fear or embarrassment. After the final chant, the rows dissolved into tiny mixed discussion groups. The Catholics that had been observing the prayer from afar eagerly joined these groups. Laughter and a steady buzz of animated chatter filled the gym.
In reflection, I can only compare this gradual improvement in relations to the "dark night" of the soul that Father Charlie mentioned. At first, fear and apprehension clouded the participants' ability to reach out to one another. It was only through a slow shift in attitude, a dawning willingness to release their prior media-influenced perceptions and begin to accept the other that a miniature rapprochement took place. In this dark night, these souls, Muslims and Catholics alike, had lost all-their mistrust, their stereotypes-and transformed into a united group who suddenly realized that they had more in common than previously thought. They now had the confidence to know that recognizing the humanity in people they had been taught to shun did not endanger their individuality or their own beliefs. If that new knowledge that so influenced this tiny group of people of St. Francis of Assisi Church could spread into other communities throughout the world, then a legacy of peace and understanding over violence and hatred may yet be left to our children.
