TOBIN ARCHIVES
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Jesus told us to work for understanding
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
April 11 , 2008
“It was in Antioch (in Syria) that the disciples were first called Christian” (Acts of the Apostle 11:26)
Spring is bursting all over. Suddenly all the new leaves are on the trees. Midway Road, once visible from the priory road, is concealed by new growth. Strange sounds of creatures that call these woods their home are heard all the time.
We live in this environment, mindful that we live with countless other creatures, all of us praising one Creator. Walking around the lake you must look down, because you just may step on somebody’s home which could have unwelcome consequences.
The earth is beautiful in the spring, like a new day, not yet messed up by anyone. As true as this is, it is not so. All over our little blue and white planet, blood flows like water, and the wailing of torn up families drowns out calls of joy from animals anywhere. Spring always brings promise, and enkindles hope, often short lived.
Easter has come, with promise of eternal victory over evil. The recent issue of America reports thousands of Iraqi Christians, whose faith and ritual goes back to the Apostles, being driven from their lands by fanatics who violate their own religion to do so.
Mohammed preached tolerance toward Christians and Jews, as “People of the Book.” His own cousin was a Christian. So what is going on with religion being turned on its head?
The report stated, “Christians had been fleeing Iraq for years before the U.S. invasion in 2003. The Ancient Assyrian Church of the East saw four-fifths of its members emigrate before 2000.” Saddam persecuted them for their use of Syriac, their language, instead of Arabic, his language.
“Now other Christians are fleeing under combined pressures of radical Islam and the chaos of war.” Their Catholic cousins, the Chaldeans, saw their archbishop of Mosul, Faraj Rahho, kidnapped and murdered. The pressure on Iraqi Christians continues. The loss of these, and other Eastern Christians “diminishes the world Christian community, including the Christian West.” (America, March 24, 2008)
Our technology is beyond the average person’s understanding. There is no longer a fear that the “bomb” will blow us to smithereens. The fear is corporations will no longer profit if they do not have unlimited access to oil. The Middle East is being trashed for greed. The average person is left out in the discussion.
Death-Resurrection. It always comes down to that. Jesus said, “Unless the grain of wheat dies . . . .” But death is such a messy business, especially if it is done violently in the name of fanatical religion.
Nobody is clean in this. Fanaticism, which is fundamentalism on steroids, runs through Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Think about it. Adherents of these three religions together have so much power and wealth, they can blast the planet into a wasteland.
Yet the wisdom of these three religions expounds a unity and inclusiveness among all humanity as children, even images, of God. Clearly we have a challenge in the new millennium. Either we rise to it, or we all suffer, without exception.
This is the 21st century. God has not given up on us. There are brilliant voices of reason and sanity among all three religions calling for calm and dialogue. Throughout the world there are movements and groups promoting inclusiveness and unity as the only solution to continued survival on this planet.
We don’t need another Messiah, we got one and we better begin to understand what he taught. Jesus told us he would be present in all of us, and together we must work for inclusion not division, for integration, not segregation, for understanding not confusion.
Here in Mississippi, the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue continues to bring believers of all religions together in order to appreciate one another, and move us closer toward unity and inclusion that so many died for.
Forty years ago last Friday (April 4) Martin Luther King was assassinated, a martyr for human rights. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, a martyr for justice. Thomas Merton died in a tragic accident, a monk living his life for greater understanding and religious dialogue all over the world.
I pray that they have not died in vain.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Raymond.)
Unity possible, necessary to survival
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
March 14, 2008
There is no denying the world we live in is a fractured, divided, polarized place. Anyone could fill a page with examples. Every now and then something comes my way that startles me with an open expression of unity in diversity.
I’m at the age when I am hesitant to use slogan phrases. Often they bring up a different context than what the current writer is trying to say. However, with the pressure of television forcing presidential candidates to articulate complex policy programs, not only reducing them to sound bites, but after 3,000 speeches, to mantras. This only adds to dumb down the populace, and the brighter ones search for answers. There is something for another column.
So, I use this slogan “unity in diversity,” wherever it came from, to express something essential about our religion. Over the last few years “Catholic” has been added to many things our church publishes, promotes or otherwise wants us to pay attention to.
However, I have been in groups where this word is very narrowly defined, to the point vast numbers of people and ideas are excluded. Being a lover of words, I thought I would tinker with this, and did some research.
Well, over a millennium and a half ago, the hot button issue in the church was the nature of Jesus Christ. There was a group known as Arians who believed Jesus was not fully divine as the Father. They had major councils to settle such things as these.
It was at one of these councils that an Egyptian (Coptic) bishop, a major theologian, used the word catholic meaning universal, common, what is held by all. He won the big theological argument, and we say the creed that bears his name, the Athanasian Creed.
Thus catholic applied to all Christians who held these universal beliefs. For the next millennium catholic referred to our universality. I should add catholic is an adjective and Christian is a noun, first used in Antioch as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.
It didn’t become widely uses as a noun with a capital “C” until the 16th century. For centuries Christian and Catholic were, for the most part, one and the same. It was also international.
The power of our catholicity, in fact, creates a big tent. It reaches worldwide, including representatives from every nation and culture on the planet. Many of us experience this when we leave our country and encounter fellow Catholic Christians from other places with customs all their own.
We don’t have to travel to do that. Our country has, in one way or another, become the home of just about every other nationality on the planet. Cultures and languages proliferate and are preserved.
I see this going on right here. Our Catholic Church here in Mississippi reflects the country. We celebrate Encuentro with the Hispanic population, and just last week the Black Catholic Congress had its annual day of reflection. In both we see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit among everyone who attends one of these events.
The cultural differences, the styles of worship, the exuberance and joy, only make our unity stronger. When people truly share their faith, it is not with words or arguments, it is from the heart. It is a sharing of the Holy Spirit that makes us one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
I can resonate when I see the faith I was raised in expressed in harmony and rhythm, in clapping and swaying that makes you feel the presence of God all around you. At the same time, not missing a beat in the ancient rituals, the breaking of the bread, the sharing of the cup, we recognize the presence of Jesus and one another as his disciples, the same way the two recognized him on the road to Emmaus.
In Clarksdale, the heart of the blues, I felt the Spirit pull us together, for a time, healing the wounds of the centuries. There is something so catholic about this. Our different styles only reinforce our common faith. It is Catholic with a capital “C.”
Our common faith is a witness to our fractured, polarized country, likely to be more polarized, that unity is not only possible, but is a necessity for our little blue and white planet and its inhabitants to survive.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Raymond.)
‘Who really benefits from immigrant labor?’
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
February 8, 2008
As Catholics we must know and appreciate our church’s teaching on social justice. This forms our Catholic conscience regarding the immigration debate.
The U.S. bishops’ have issued statements: “Voices and Choices” The Bishops of the South, 2000; and “Strangers No Longer,” the U.S. and Mexican Bishops, 2003.
In 2007 Catholic responses to the immigration issue in Congress included the “Statement Regarding the Failure of the Senate’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill,” Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Los Angeles; “Statement of the Executive Directors of the Conference of the Major Superiors of Men, and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious on the Failure of Congress to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” and the “Letter from the Catholic Bishops of North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina to members of Congress in Three States.”
All of these unambiguously defend immigrant rights. They defend the right to migrate. They defend worker rights and the right to dialogue and advocate for humane and just working conditions. They defend these people as possessing human rights, and the fact they must be treated with respect.
They condemn, in all its forms, racist and inhumane treatment of immigrants. This is the church’s teaching. You will rarely see this in the media.
I don’t often take up this issue. I defer to Sister Jean Juliano, DC, who has been teaching us the church’s position, and our position in the struggle for immigrant justice in Mississippi. Many of us in the coalitions and advocacy groups we work with will do our best to prevent old-time racism from crafting policies in the guise of immigration reform.
The current session of the Mississippi Legislature is dealing with its version of “immigration reform.” The rhetoric will become so hot reason will jump out the window. Before we go through this, let us look at just what is driving this migration of labor.
Supply and demand expresses much of it. The demand for cheap labor by U.S. corporations, the lack of jobs in Mexico, Guatemala, the Caribbean, or elsewhere south of the border. The age-old urge to migrate to fend off starvation.
Desperate people willing and able to work at any job they can get to feed their families is the simplest way to frame the issue. Then increase the need at both ends, and we have a mass migration.
It has happened before in our country. European migration that diversified America, had to fight the same kind of hatred Latin American migrants face. People who lived through that say it was survival of the fittest.
What is different? NAFTA and CAFTA for starters. Both of these treaties opened up Latin America to U.S. products. Cheap American corn drives native growers out of business. As this is being written the price of tortillas in Mexico has tripled.
The same thing is going on in Haiti. The poor are literally eating dirt cookies to kill the hunger pains because rice has become unaffordable. Why? Because food prices around the world have spiked, because of higher oil prices needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation.
Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well. The problem is very acute in the Caribbean where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in some places. (Clarion-Ledger, Jan. 30, 2008)
Merely explaining crises like these in economic terms excuses nothing. This, going on just off the coast of the richest most consuming nation in the world is inexcusable.
A mass migration is under way, and no wall, no army, no prisons can stop it. It is driven by hunger and the need for work. It supplies an unlimited supply of the cheapest labor, akin to slavery, to the biggest American corporations who depend on the system to survive. Its chief product is inequality.
This is consciously planned to keep profits high and labor cheap.
No immigration policy will work, unless this exploitation is addressed.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Raymond.)
Light has shown in land of gloom
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
This time of year we get to hear very inspirational and powerful poetry from the Bible, especially the Book of Isaiah. When you read this I will have slogged in the snow, perhaps got stuck in airports, and seen frozen fellow travelers grateful to come in out of the cold.
Leaving beautiful Mississippi in the winter, to head into the heart of it, takes will power; but the Scripture is right on time, as gray skies and snow flurries blur the vision. I think of Isaiah 9: 1, “Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shown.” That could not come at a better time than the winter solstice, the longest nights, the shortest days, and up North, the snow and freezing rain.
People need more than football games to cheer them up this time of year. Recently I saw the light shining in a piece about a very dedicated lady out our way near Raymond, who makes lights shine in minds dulled by isolation and self hate, lives already messed up that makes their future uncertain. A petite septuagenarian, she radiates optimism and educational expertise.
Her students are locked up, but she says the key to opening their minds is, “You have to convince them they’re not what people have been telling them they are.” They complete their GED, and all look to her like their grandma. They may not have broken the cycle from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse, but they are given hope for a second chance. “A light has shown in the land of gloom.”
More lights shining in the land of gloom are two women in Holmes County who have made it their lifework to help young people break the cycle from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse. The key is education and they are active in Holmes County to do everything possible to prevent the school system from failing youth.
They have formed a coalition, “Prevention of the Schoolhouse to the Jailhouse Coalition.” It is state-wide. It is intergenerationally led after the model of Southern Echo, another group shining light into the gloom, and bringing people hope.
This month, on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, they will come from all over the state to the capitol steps for a huge youth rally. As in the past, young people will speak out for juvenile justice and for education. These youth are focused and dedicated. They, themselves, are lights shining. I see them as future leaders.
Seeing them each year, I think of so many just like them, still wandering in the land of gloom. This rally is another side of Christmas just past. There are prayers offered, a little preaching maybe, lots of singing and cheers, but surely they reflect that God has not abandoned them, why he is right there putting fire in their bellies to work hard that education reaches everyone, and really breaks the rails and stops the train from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse.
That other verse from Isaiah 9, a verse of liberation comes to mind, “The rod of their taskmaster, you have smashed, as on the day of Midian. A child is born to us, a son given to us . . . They name him wonder-counselor.”
The key to freedom is education, no getting around that. It benefits everyone. A Federal Bureau of Prisons study found the more education completed, the lower the recidivism (landing back in jail). Also several studies have shown inmates who participate in education programs are less likely to return to prison upon their release.
Other studies have shown the longer students stay in school, especially schools which provide better quality education, crime rates are actually lowered and youth stay out of the criminal justice system.
In the gloom of winter it is good to applaud those who bring light and hope. We surely need it.
A new year, fresh light, new hope! Yes he became one of us and he is with us to the end. Have a blessed New Year!
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
A little child will lead them
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
Engaging in the struggle for justice for immigrants and a fair immigration policy, which Sister Jean Juliano, DC, writes so well about in this paper, we should not overlook the situation of children who are refugees.
Here in Jackson, Catholic Charities’ Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program has been in this work since 1980. We are familiar in their resettling Sudanese refugee youth. From our efforts and others throughout the country came the documentary “The Lost Boys of Sudan” that raised the nation’s consciousness.
Today (Dec. 14), two Haitian youth will go through an emancipation ceremony surrounded by caring foster parents, peers and dedicated Catholic Charities staff. This is an affirming rite of passage recognizing often silent but heroic efforts to rebuild lives from chaos. They take confident first steps to begin again in a new country.
This puts a new face on the issue of immigration. I participated in several of these ceremonies, and the courage of these youth energizes me. The best of America came from immigrants fleeing oppression, and who is more vulnerable than youth coming from oppressive regimes?
Haiti has a long and proud history, and has given us creative geniuses who have enriched our own culture. The powerful writer, Edwidge Danticat, left Haiti and resettled to Brooklyn at the age of 12. She mastered three languages, producing novels depicting the struggle of Haiti today.
Her current book, “Brother I’m Dying”, tells her own father’s last illness and his difficulty with American immigration bureaucracy that hastened his death. Her stories show the warm and courageous spirit of the Haitian people steeped in Catholicism and indigenous religions that sustained them over three centuries of paying the price of successfully throwing off the yoke of slavery.
Then there are Salvadorans fleeing a repressive regime trying to find a little peace. We all remember the Jesuits and their housekeeper murdered, and the witness of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
Yet walk down the street and hear the languages and accents, and see the people from many countries, and you don’t think like this. You see them as individuals like the rest of us. However, today there is a virulent hatred of anybody who isn’t “standard (white) American.” That is the standard everyone is measured against. A false fear of “the other” is rendering the country paranoid. Just see Eugene Robinson’s piece on his attendance at the American Anthropological Society Convention. He describes Americans, members of the most powerful nation on earth, living behind walls, popping pills to prevent diseases they may never get, and looking at the world with an “us or them” mentality. Then talk radio spews out the vomit of talking heads stoking people’s fears of losing their identity in a morass of “foreign languages.”
This is the nation built on immigrants. This is the nation campaigning to save Ellis Island, where “our ancestors came speaking German, French, Swedish, Polish, Italian, etc. and built America.” Maybe so but the ad fails to mention the virulent nativist prejudice they had to endure.
In our state the target groups come from Central and South America. They are struggling against an exploitive and unjust system. They come from oppressive and poverty-stricken places. Often it is American trade policies that render their communities powerless to compete.
They migrate to find work. Migration is a right, our bishops tell us. They come and work long hours in bad conditions. They pay taxes. They live in poor communities. They fill our churches. They speak Spanish, but they are us. We don’t know that yet, or we deny it. They are us. They must make it or we all fail
Next month the state Legislature is back in session. We will hear old-time Jim Crow racist propaganda directed against these immigrants. I am going on record (again) to say none of that is American even if it is wrapped in the flag. It is the same stuff we struggled against, black, white and brown, to achieve some level of civil rights, a better quality of life for our children. Let’s not target families, like us, who struggle. Let us attack an unfair system and urge our Legislators, both local and national, to create a fair, just and honorable immigration policy based on the teachings of our church.
I look back at the two Haitian youth just graduated from our program. They could tell me a thing or two about oppression. They are smiling. Hope and promise radiates off them. Never mind. They make this old man feel upbeat. It will get better. It always does.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
Witnesses show where Spirit leads
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
November 16 , 2007
The recent convocation of priests, deacons and lay/religious ecclesial ministers, which was covered so well in this publication, is worth a second look. It was held in historic Natchez, the cradle of Catholicism in our region.
It was significant in many ways. This time the presenters and panelists were all from our diocese. Also, for the first time, the religious/lay pastoral ministers (now called lay ecclesial ministers) participated and presented during the last day and a half.
Some people recommended they participate at all the convocation the next time. Forty percent of Catholic churches are run by lay ministers. Priest sacramental ministers are circuit riders.
This seems like a new development, but we were reminded this was the norm for a good part of Catholic history in Mississippi. There were many inspiring presenters who made us excited about a new possibility of evangelizing and sustaining faith communities, rather than see this as merely the fading out of priests and recruiting lay ministers as “temporary.”
Presenter after presenter quoted the documents of Vatican II and helped us see where the Spirit is leading. Yes, I prefer to see the glass half full rather than half empty.
The powerful witness from the elders who lived through the tumultuous changes that befell Mississippi and the church in the last century demonstrated that we stand on strong shoulders. Father Patrick Farrell’s remembering those days set things in a good balance reflecting the wisdom of years of experience. Every one of the presenters gave heartfelt and sincere testimony witnessing to their own faith, and encouraged the rest of us.
The Glenmarys and the Sacred Heart Fathers and Brothers have been working for years in “No Priest Land USA.” Typical for them are tiny communities that sustained themselves until a priest got there, whenever that was. They have been doing this over a century.
Father Tim Murphy, a Glenmary in Pontotoc, reassured us small is good, and lay people have always worked with them as collaborators. In fact the majority of the lay ecclesial ministers at the conference were from North Mississippi, the part with the fewest Catholics. Tim felt totally secure, and in fact excited the church is opening up ministry to lay people like this.
He and other presenters, like Sister Liz Brown over in Okolona, who has been ministering up there over 20 plus years, is very secure in her role, speaking professionally about demographics, poverty indices, outreach to non-Catholics, although the Vatican II term, “Separated Brothers and Sisters” was most often used.
Collaboration is more than between clergy and laity in ministry together, but also with other faith communities as well. Mississippi Catholic history is replete with examples of Protestants helping out Catholics and vice versa.
The religious priests, brothers and sisters present at the meeting seemed most comfortable with, and excited by the possibilities opening up. The diocesan clergy were also enthusiastic, but expressed more concern about covering places and the future of small churches and sustaining sacramental ministry.
I must mention Father Henry Shelton’s presentation on social justice as a powerful witness of what he and his colleagues are doing in Tupelo. The outreach is to everyone. We developed on the many ramifications of evangelization.
Father Elvin Sunds reminded us we are definitely at a point of transition, and have been for several years. Change is painful, he said, but it is a sign new growth is taking place. He urged us to be excited by new possibilities and to trust God who always sees us through.
Yes, there is the negative side. There is a history of religious and racial bigotry that, unfortunately, is not dead. Just a few days after this energizing conference the Ku Klux Klan marched in Tupelo. Hatred is still with us this century, yet we have the talent and the means to stamp it out. True religion dispels hatred and lies.
The witness of the caliber of those gathered in Natchez can meet these challenges. Vatican II awakened the laity like a sleeping giant. The readings from the Letter to the Romans these past weeks tell us of the power that comes from baptism. Lay people are answering the call. All of us, clergy, religious and laity are coming together in collaborative ways to make the church in Mississippi not merely survive, but thrive to be a beacon of reconciliation in the 21st century.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
‘I will send my angel to guard you’
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
October 12 , 2007
A front page story in today’s Clarion Ledger (Oct. 2) reports Tallahatchie County will formally apologize to the family of Emmett Till, and the nation, for the horrible atrocity and travesty of justice that occurred in that courtroom in Sumner, Miss., in 1955. The ceremony will take place today in Sumner, and relatives of Emmett Till will be there. State Sen. David Jordan, a civil rights icon in his own right, will preside.
It is good to see justice and closure in these long standing civil rights cases. We still need healing, lots of healing for the sins of our parents and grandparents for so many, many years of bad things.
I remember Emmett Till vividly. We would be the same age. I was in eighth grade in Chicago, watching our black and white TV reporting the events in Mississippi, which to me was a dangerous and alien land.
I remember the funeral at the church on South State Street. Jet Magazine’s famous photographs of the open casket let all the world see the results of evil up close.
Years later, grown and a priest, I remember talking to A.A. “Sammy” Raynor about it at many a funeral. It was his funeral home that handled the arrangements. By that time the funeral home was across 71st Street from St. Columbanus Church, of which he was a member and a Knight of Peter Claver. We had many a friendly chat over the years, until he was called home to God.
I bring this up, because over the years as these cases get resolved one way or another, and closure takes place, and people say, as (Senator) Jordan was quoted, “A metamorphosis has taken place (in Mississippi]),” a funny feeling creeps over me. Something isn’t quite right.
Things like racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice against one group or another, just don’t disappear. I know, you will remind me of my optimism in the big year 2000, for my hope for the new millennium. I even call my column “Millennial Reflections,” because I have an abiding hope for positive social change in our nation and the world.
Then I see it. Incident after incident. Laws and policies people died for, being chipped away, piece by piece. Then there is Jena, La. When this first popped up, I was the little eighth grader who wondered, “Where was Mississippi?” trying to figure out, “Where is Jena, La.?” As this outrage continues to unfold, my unrelenting optimism kept denying, “How can this be, 40 years later?” There it was, in all its ugliness.
I was blessed to be around people as shocked and concerned as I was. Everyone quietly knew what had to be done. There are so many good people here in Mississippi. Groups quietly organized. Before dawn (what did Thomas Merton say? “It is darkest before the dawn.”) a bus from Tougaloo College, another hallowed spot that sustained the movement, and Jackson State University moved on to I-20 toward Monroe, then Jena. I, too, with a United Auto Workers (UAW) organizer headed to where we had to be.
I will talk like a religious, for the Holy Spirit was in that place. Over 60,000 people (believe nothing less…) were moving like one organism. Everyone was family. I spoke to people from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, New York, New Mexico, Arizona. I mean the nation was in Jena that day. Yes we rallied for justice. We prayed for justice. We knew it will turn out all right.
I mean the big picture. This new, 21st century has begun its own struggle for human rights. Jena was the first major civil, but now it has become human, rights action this century.
We look at pictures of our heroes in the last century. We experience the “metamorphosis” as Jordan calls it. I study their expressions. They had to struggle with the only enemy that can defeat those who struggle for change. That enemy is fear. What conquered fear for them, is what conquered fear for us, faith in God. The rock faith of the “Three Young Men” in the fiery furnace, who were protected by the angel (Daniel 3:16-27), protected us.
In the midst of this outrage, becoming more intense as details unfold, we had an inner serenity that comes to those who are doing what is right. We were family that day. As St. Augustine says, we “were of one mind and one heart in God.” We were of one mind and one heart doing the work of God.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
Separated brothers might have common mother
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
September 14 , 2007
A few weeks ago many of us had the chance to see Christanne Amanpour’s three nights of videos on “God’s Warriors,” the militant and fundamentalist wings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It was powerful and informative.
She herself is in the mix with a Muslim father, a Catholic mother and a Jewish husband (married in a Catholic ceremony, by the way). She is quite open about her multicultural and multi-religious upbringing, and felt it helps give her a good balance in this crazy world we live in.
None of what she presented represented the mainstream Jews, Christians and Muslims. In Turkey there is a knee jerk rejection of extremism as anathema (to use a Catholic term).
Historians and scholars can trot out tons of evidence of how Jews, Christians and Muslims actually lived in harmony for centuries. This writer can attest to Catholic Christian Arabs and their Muslim neighbors sharing in each others’ feast days, in a natural ordinary way.
To bring this up now, somebody would immediately find fault with it, or dismiss it as propaganda. Yet Melkite (Catholic) Christians still call God Allah in their prayers. There is a lot more to this than meets the eye.
Msgr. Joe Champlin, famous for his “Together in Christ” marriage prep for Catholics of my generation, is involved in the Catholic Muslim dialogue. He lists 10 things we share in common. Of course among these are some things we don’t agree on, but that’s what makes interreligious dialogue, accepting the differences, and building relationships of love and trust.
(1) Catholics and Muslims believe in one God, that is we both believe in the same God. Much of what the Quran says about God echoes the Bible.
(2) Catholics and Muslims believe in divine assistance.
(3) Catholics and Muslims practice daily prayer. Muslims pray five times a day. We who pray the Liturgy of the Hours pray anywhere from two to seven times a day, those of us who don’t often say grace before meals, attend morning Mass.
(4) Catholics and Muslims practice weekly worship. Muslims worship on Friday. (Jews worship on Saturday and Christians on Sunday.)
(5) Catholics and Muslims practice fasting for spiritual discipline. Ramadan is their month long fast from everything from sunup to sundown. Before dawn they take breakfast, and after sundown they eat dinner with friends and neighbors, often including their Christian neighbors. They call it Iftar. This goes on the whole month. The practice of fasting is alive and well in both religions.
(6) Almsgiving. This is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and is common to Catholics and Muslims to give alms and do outreach and care for the poor and vulnerable.
(7) Catholics and Muslims have holy places and shrines. I have been to several such as the Dome of the Rock, where Muhammad ascended to heaven, much like St. Paul was carried to the “third heaven,” to affirm his mission, and then brought back; the Cave of Abraham in Urfa, where I found Catholics and Muslims revering our common patriarch; Mary’s House in Ephesus, where Catholics and Muslims were in force honoring the Virgin Mary. Rosaries and prayer beads were in abundance there.
(8) People of the Book. Throughout the Quran, the people of the book, Christians and Jews, who have divinely revealed Scriptures are mentioned, and must be respected and honored.
(9) Abraham. He is our common ancestor.
(10) Jesus and Mary. Muslims have a deep reverence for Jesus (Issa) and the Virgin Mary (Maryam). They believe, as we do, that Mary was a virgin and gave birth to Jesus by the power of God. They name their children Issa and Maryam.
Mary’s house at Ephesus brings Catholics and Muslims together as one. When I was there I had a new appreciation of Mary bringing Catholics and Muslims together in dialogue to achieve a real unity in diversity. Muslims do not see Jesus as a Messiah, nor have any understanding of the Trinity.
However, they see Jesus as the greatest of God’s prophets or messengers, and Jesus will come to judge the world. They believe Muhammad didn’t invent anything, but picked up where Jesus left off.
Yes, there are major differences between Catholics and Muslims. However, of all the different “brands” of Christians, Catholics and Muslims have most in common.
Even what separates us the most (the Trinity and nature of Jesus) is also a bonding force in that both of us revere Jesus, and his mother. The 19th Sura (chapter) of the Quran is all about Mary. We must learn about each other, for knowledge dispels fear, and love forges unity.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
Some differences matter, others don’t
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
August 17, 2007
Unity. What does it take to bring people together?
“Unity in diversity” is a motto of God knows how many groups, but how do we get there? We lived through a time where we thought we got there, but, alas, it was premature.
I would venture to say that much failure was not paying attention to differences that matter. Now some differences do not matter, but those that do, are usually weighted down with some social, religious, political, or other elements that make them symbols of identity.
With technology — the Internet, satellite telephones, high speed travel — the world becomes very small. Much of what makes us who we are has not changed, and cannot be changed, despite instant communication.
Add to that, this century is beginning with a resurgence of divisiveness, raising up the walls, isolating people, creating fear and suspicion fed by ignorance. We seem to have taken a 180-degree turn from the direction of things we took for granted a mere 30 years ago.
Now, more than then, we need to discover unity, merely for the sake of survival on this small blue and white planet floating in the void. Technology alone demands this. Misunderstanding can have catastrophic consequences.
This could be a great introduction to a speech blasting certain political directions and events of recent years, but that’s too easy. When we reflect on unity, we are not just talking about dialogue and compromise and getting along. When we talk about unity, we think about what makes us one species, human. What is there that we all have in common? I find this interesting from a religious perspective.
Vatican II opened a big door to religious dialogue and acceptance. It spawned an ecumenical movement for the next 40 years. Despite the contrary, it is still going on. It may stumble here and there, but it still is ongoing.
For example, despite what the media said about the pope getting Muslims mad at him for quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, the Muslims in Turkey still spoke with pride when he went to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and prayed with the Muslim leaders for unity and what we share in common (which is more than most people think).
When John XXIII was beatified the Turks called him “Turkey’s first pope” in recognition of all the good he did in Turkey when he was the Vatican’s representative. Now that is a gesture!
Unity is more than symbols and gestures, as powerful as they are, and despite the genuine good they do. Unity is always a goal, but never fully achieved. This new millennium and this century need to review the basics that we learned during the turbulent “century of change” that we just completed.
Perhaps that is the problem — the millennium. People go crazy when a millennium is crossed. The last time it happened all kinds of strange things happened. They are happening again. It’s like “Man the lifeboats, every person for themselves, the world is going to end!”
We forget the world has ended, many times. A mindset of fear of attack raises barriers, and makes the mass of people weak, like sheep, easily manipulated. How many times have I heard in the last few weeks in U.S. airports, “The threat level is orange.”
The crowds just kept on moving, heading for their plane or the nearest Borders or Barnes and Noble. Yet those messages subliminally contribute to an underlying uneasiness. We have new things to contend with now.
Yet despite what leaders warn, people really want to come together. There are interfaith movements throughout the country bridging the religious divide, and bringing people together. No, it’s not some conversion technique. It is not stirring up some unrecognizable religious gumbo.
It is people appreciating their own and others religious traditions, to see what they hold dear reflected in the other. This gives hope. Perhaps humanity does have a future, and good things will yet come to be.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O. Praem. lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)
Black Catholics celebrate with joyful noise, holy silence
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
July 20, 2007
Soon there will be a feature story and pictures of Congress X in Buffalo New York of the gathering of the National Black Catholic Congress.
Begun in the late 1800s as a result of the work of Daniel Rudd, and reborn with a contemporary face by Sister Thea Bowman in the 1980s, the National Black Catholic Congress has been a unifying and spiritual force for black Catholics, and those close to them, all over the country. Even those who have never heard of it are benefiting from the many positions and directives this organization has taken.
I would like to share my reflections in order to illustrate something of the Catholicity in the church we call Catholic.
Over 2300 people attended this event in the Buffalo Convention Center. The area is rich in African American history being the terminal of the Underground Railroad. The spirit of Harriett Tubman permeates the place. (Of course something could be said for Niagara Falls I suppose.)
This event has become truly international. Several African countries were represented as well as Latin American and Caribbean nations as well. The diversity illustrated the world from the vantage point of people of color. We were all one, giant, humongous extended family. People were reconnecting with friends from all over the country. Personally, I met an old friend I hadn’t seen in 40 years!
When we sang and praised the Lord it was one voice and one spirit. However this year the gospel sound occasionally gave way to progressive jazz. Dr. Kevin Johnson is an absolute precious resource.
As author, composer and professor of music at Spellman College in Atlanta, he has taken black Catholic music a step beyond Father Clarence Rivers, Grayson Brown, Sister Bowman, true pioneers in moving our liturgy to reflect the gifts and culture of African Americans.
Dr. Johnson shared with us a paper he is publishing that describes a perfect fit between the free, spirit filled style of African American music with the flow and structure of the Roman liturgy.
For instance, he has several recordings of psalm responses and Masses in different styles illustrating the rich variety of black church music that fit with the responses between the scripture readings. He has also recorded a jazz Mass that reflects the solemnity and reverence as well as the joyfulness expressed in our liturgy.
Those who think of black church music as shouting and praising with a strong beat were treated to styles no less spirit filled but complemented the holy times and silent times when we are in communion with God in the Eucharist.
From joyful noise to holy silence his music expressed the full range and gifts of African American liturgical music that made our liturgies truly Catholic and black, and you can take away the “and.”
The Mass choir under his direction blended well with the ritual and solemnity of the nation’s black bishops, deacons and priests during the Liturgies. Dr. Johnson was raised in the Catholic Church and loves it. For him being black and Catholic is as natural as pants going with a shirt.
Another highlight for me was the introduction to centering prayer by Abbot Emeritus Thomas Keating, OCSO, of Snowmass Abbey in Colorado. Many know him in Jackson when he presented this workshop here some years back. His presence made us all feel how rich our Catholic spirituality is.
The session I attended was packed. There he was in his black and white Trappist habit perfectly at home articulating clear and convincingly, how anyone can experience God and Jesus within them.
In another session he used the documents of Vatican II to illustrate the four ways Jesus is present in the Eucharist. He pointed out, among other things, that holy Communion is the closest union with God we can get and as Paul says, makes us the Body of Christ. He spoke, as Scripture says, “As one who has authority, not as the scribes.” His presence alone lifted all of us.
I can also share with you the powerful workshops on prison ministry, Catholic relief services in Africa, and immigration reform. All were well attended. Instead I share some of the spiritual force that keeps people “coming back to congress” every five years.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at St. Moses the Black.)
West meets East (Part two)
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
June 22, 2007
Here is part two from my trip to Turkey with 21 others as travelers and pilgrims attempting to rediscover our religious past in order to continue dialogue between all religions.
Sponsored by the Institute of Interfaith Dialogue based in Texas and Mississippi, we were hosted by Turkish Muslims sincerely seeking interfaith dialogue between Christians and Jews.
In future columns I will get specific about what this means, and make you aware of the ongoing Catholic-Muslim dialogue.
Turkey is an ideal place to begin this journey. What is now Turkey saw the development of Christianity and Islam to become towering expressions of their culture and theology. In this same place are colossal ruins of colossal failure in religious dialogue leading to the historic catastrophe we still live with.
In this same place we can encounter the presence of Abraham, our ancestor in the faith, a beautiful devotion to the Virgin Mary and deep reverence for Jesus, “who will come and judge the world and reconcile it with God.”
In this place we see reverence for the covenant between God and humanity, and its deliverance through Moses. Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses (Mousa), Jesus (Issa), and Mary (Maryam), the very pillars of our faith, have a deep devotion and reverence by Muslims.
The power of faith runs all over the Anatolian plains and into the caves at Cappadocia. Those great fathers Gregory, Basil, and Gregory are all over. Kayseri (Ceasarea) was the see of one Gregory, Nesfehir (Nyssa) the see of another Gregory, and Basil, compiler of the liturgy that bears his name, still have powerful memorials in Cappadocia.
The place looks like New Mexico with rock formations like beehives, and natural and man-made caves bringing back the monks of old who walked and talked in perfect submission to God long before Islam, the religion of submission to God, appeared on the scene.
The chapels inside with frescoes, Greek icons of Mary (Theotokos), Jesus (Pantocrator), and John the Baptist, always appear above the stone altar. They are so fresh. Newer ones are 12th century.
Christians and others hid here for protection. Things like the Mongol Invasions, which triggered to a large extent the Turkish-Muslim westward expansion, draw a blank with most of us. To all of us much of this was new. Our “Western Civilization” courses never went east of the Elbe. The Ottoman Empire was the blob on the map giving the name of the mapmaker.
Being the only Catholic in the group, which really blended well, it was interesting to see how my Protestant friends connected with our common Christian past. Another big lacuna in education. “Beautiful art!” was the general response, while I touched an ancient icon and crossed myself.
First impressions. We crossed into a parallel universe. When we entered Aya Sofia, the greatest church in Christendom, built by Emperor Justinian, “Holy Wisdom,” it stood out as a relic of the tragic history of Christian failure to dialogue.
Much of it is still the way the crusaders left it after they stripped it of anything they could move. When Mhemet II conquered Constantinople, this was his crown jewel. He was aghast at its condition. He had buttresses built to keep it standing. Despite its conversion to a mosque and reconversion to a museum, the Ottomans get the credit for it not turning into a pile of brick and stone.
Later I spoke with the Imam at the Blue Mosque across the square from Aya Sofia. He showed where he and Pope Benedict XVI prayed. He also was moved that the pope prayed as the Muslims do. As a further move to dialogue, the Holy Father presented the ecumenical patriarch with an icon from Hagia Sophia stolen by the crusaders almost 900 years ago. He lives in the Phanar, the last link to Christian Constantinople.
Today we need dialogue more than ever. Fear is bred by ignorance. Most Americans know nothing about Islam, I mean nothing. Fanatics running around in old fashioned clothes hurling bombs are a disgrace to Islam. Yet we see that nightly and get a distorted view of the religion. I will have more to say on that.
Yes Turkey is the place to begin dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Our failures are out in the open, and the need for honest and prayerful dialogue is screaming at us.
To see God working among Christians and Muslims to create this dialogue is so powerful for us. There will be a part three, maybe more. Despite what we hear, there is so much hope. God is so good.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at St. Moses the Black.)
Children of Abraham need to make peace, talk
By Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
May 11, 2007
The Internet is truly an amazing thing. I am not of the wired generation who have “Blackberry” devices that are like a second electronic mind. I was in an airport with a friend of mine who edited a report, updated the appointment calendar, made phone calls, all to people both in and out of the country.
The Internet has us all so connected that everything becomes local. Sometimes virtual reality and the real thing become blurred. Then there is the speed of jet travel. People can be transported both electronically and physically so efficiently and safely, that only a few short years ago these were undreamed of.
By way of contrast, a few years ago a two-volume translation into English appeared of letters from the pioneer Norbertines in the 1800s recounting their missionary efforts in northeastern Wisconsin. The struggle to go just a few miles by horse and wagon in a December blizzard make one cold just to read it.
Similar records exist here describing transportation and communication across Mississippi. Bishop John Chance’s diaries describe his travels through Warren, Claiborne and Adams counties. These accounts describe what takes 45 minutes today as half-a-day journey or more. Back then the separation made each place unique, and the effort to get there only underlined the differences.
Today the planet is becoming a village, but differences of historic dimensions remain, and unless they are respected and understood no means of travel or communication will make them any more understood.
It is not the convenience, ease or safety in travel and communication, it is understanding the people and places we reach out to that is important. The survival of humanity depends on this. Despite our technology we are doing a very bad job at this.
I am not going to bore you with yet another account of manufactured fear, the “war on terror” or anything you haven’t already heard about whether from me or anybody else. The simple fact is, yes we have made the world smaller, and there are people different than we are, and that alone is reason enough to get to know them and learn from them.
The truth is, all human history is interconnected. The more we know about one another, the better we all are.
This is really a two part column. When you read this, I’ll be preparing to leave for Turkey with a group of Jacksonians sponsored by the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue (IID). Remember them? Some of you outside of the metro area may not know what I am talking about. A few years ago they came to Jackson’s Thalia Mara Hall with the “Whirling Dervishes” of Rumi.
They belong to the Sufi Order of Islam noted for its mysticism. Rumi was a 13th century poet and mystic whose poetry has an uncanny similarity to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Blessed Herman Joseph of Steinfeld, Hildegard of Bingen, and a few centuries later, St. John of the Cross. All of them wrote of their experiences of union with God. All mystics seem to reach up and beyond religious limitations, but that’s another piece.
Rumi’s poetry has been very popular in this country and our trip marks his 800th birthday. Over the years we have been adapting some things from the Sufis perhaps without knowing they are Muslim, such as the enneagram, a very popular device at retreats for self reflection.
The IID has sponsored an annual interfaith dinner in Jackson, and has brought together Catholic, Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, Hindu, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and each year, a new religious representative to celebrate the efforts of all religions in their journey to God.
This interfaith trip to Turkey will bring us to the Christian and Muslim shrines that have been central in their formation. Places like Ephesus, Nicea, Cappadocia, call to mind Paul and Barnabas, whom we have been reading about, and Gregory and Basil, the great councils of the early church. Istanbul (Constantinople) also calls to mind the Ottoman emperors like Sultan Ahmet I, who built the Blue Mosque in 1609 across the plaza from Hagia Sophia, built by the Roman Emperor Justinian between 532-537 AD, the major cathedral of the Byzantine Church. It was the most beautiful church in Christendom for centuries.
So much of this faded from Catholic radar after the Schism of 1054 and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, May 29, 1453. Yet our histories have been forever intertwined. The latest chapter is Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
With all the terrible things going on in the Middle East, it is imperative that the Children of Abraham make peace and talk to each other. The Roman Canon speaks of Abraham, “our father in faith” and every evening in vespers we recall “the promises made to our ancestors, to Abraham’s heirs forever.” Stay tuned.
(Fr. Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at St. Moses the Black Priory, Jackson.)
