Journaling My Thoughts At The Interreligious Dialogue Between Shia & Catholic Sisters At Subiaco Retreat Centre, Karen, Nairobi Kenya
Written by Sis Intifada Bashir Wangare
Salamun Alaykum dear beautiful souls,
Hope you are well basking in God’s infinite Mercy and Love Ameen.
I was recently invited to attend the most beautiful spiritual retreat and felt so enriched meeting new friends and bonding as sisters under the unity of God and unity in God. It was absolutely a safe space to discuss our faith and our human relations with one another under the banner of God centredness. I felt like I was a born again Muslimah and experiencing a new dimension that sparkled within me and manifested. It was indeed a transformational journey seeking God’s light in others.
(6th June – 10th June 2023)
Day 1 of the 4 days Inter religious dialogue between Shia and catholic sisters held at the Subiaco retreat centre Karen.
This noble endeavour has been a collective effort since last several years. This year’s theme was mainly focused on the Shia Muslim and St.Benedictine Sisters evolutionary growth and dialogues. The program was thought through carefully and put together with joint efforts by Father Maxmillian, coordinated by Father William Skudlark from St.Pauls Minnesota, Shaykh Dr Muhammad Shomali from the UK and sisters Isra Safieddine and Shahnaaz Safieddine from Michigan USA.
The noble attendance was Benedictine Missionary sisters and Shia Muslim sisters from countries such as Kenya, America, Namibia, Uganda, Canada, Britain , Tanzania, Iran and Ethiopia.
This program was held to foster organic relationships between Shia Muslims and Catholic monastic women. It is a series of many other programs held before and being held in different parts of the world.
Sheikh Shomali highlighted some points on similarities between Muslims and Christians and why we should look for commonalities between us and create a beautiful garden from it.
Some of the similarities include:
- We both believe and serve the same God, who is Merciful, Omnipotent, Benovelent and Omnipresent.
- We have the same father and mother (Adam and Eve).
- As humans, we believe in human free will, our mandate to be focused around God, our responsibilities and accountabilities before God. We share the same understanding of key basic universal moral values.
- We both believe in resurrection and God’s treatment of human beings with Justice and Mercy.
- We both have high esteem for the gift of reason and conscience and at the same time recognize our need for Divine revelation.
- We both believe in prophethood and share a long history of prophecy, right from the beginning of mankind.
- We have great respect for Nabii Ibrahim a.s. a champion of monotheism and as the father of all who believe.
- We have great reverence and love for lady Mary pbuh and prophet Jesus upon them be peace.
- We share great concerns about challenges of living a life of faith in today’s world, caused by contemporary culture of materialism.
- We believe in complete harmony between Devine revelations and prophecies.
– The Qur’an shows great affection for Christians because of their humility, the search for truth and their sympathy with Muslims.
On this day, both the Muslim and Catholic sisters got an opportunity to ask each other burning questions that each had.
We got to understand the difference between a nun and a sister, we were told of the different missionary groups they have, their works in the communities.
The catholic sisters got to know about the different sects in Islam, they had an opportunity to air out their concerns, asked on ways to foster good relations with Muslims in their communities.
We together were able to mingle freely and debunk any stereotypes we had concerning each others faiths and beliefs.
We found the Benedictine sisters very welcoming. We also got an opportunity to witness and participate in their prayers at the chapel, they also witnessed us praying.
Day 1 take home :
- You don’t thank Allah for flowers in your garden only but you should thank Him for all flowers in all gardens.
- God is my artist (Creator), if He has pieces of art in other places (Christian sisters), why wouldn’t I not want to visit and see other works of art?(the work they do and be part of service to God and humanity)
Day 2: St. Odilias Dispensary
We visited St. Odilias Dispensary which has been registered as a Level 4 hospital due to its services.
We met sister Mary Grace from Uganda (the one in Blue). She is a caregiver for the elderly and the sick. She shared with us her works in Uganda, challenges they face and encouraged us to persue this service to God with zeal and full faith in God.
Sister Bernadette (in grey) is a practicing nurse and the one who is fully incharge of St.Odilias dispensary. She shared with us that they do collaborations with communities and hold medical camps, she is proud to have a Muslim dentist (Bilal) working with her and she extended her hand and promised to assist us in all our activities that need medical support.
Sister Zuhra (the one in a cream scarf) is a general practitioner from Mbeya Tanzania. She and her husband run an organization of Muslim doctors where they plan, organize and do activities that help to make medical services reachable to their communities.
Day 2: Presentation
Sister Nasim Walji took us through what it means to WALK TOGETHER IN FAITH AND SERVICE. Her main focus in her presentation was on “Faith And Resilience As A Collective”
She alluded to the Qur’anic model of women role models and in particular, Lady Maryam pbuh and her great faith in Allah swt during the storms she faced during her time and how she was triumphant in her faith and perseverance. She highlighted the various community works and activities she has participated over the years, what struck a cord was when she mentioned a long time friend of hers by the name Fatma Abeyd Anyanzwa.
They worked together in Kibera to protect and support women who were victims of sexual abuse among other social and moral ills.
With this in example, she brought to light that every effort we put in service to others is indeed service to God and a good deed done constantly over time yields more fruitful results.
She emphasized on the need to stay humble and well grounded. We need to choose a path of service and be dedicated to it. “We cannot save the whole world at one time but we can save the whole world collectively over time.”
She also spoke on how in today’s world we have power struggles between men and women, she reminded the womenfolk that “God has fashioned us the way He wanted, thus we don’t have to compete with the men. Men hold different roles and so do we.”
She quoted
“women are a Divine agency that is God given.”
She added that
“women are an unlimited source of love, resilience, humbleness, confidence, and submission.
Towards walking together in faith and service, she recommended the following:
- We should listen to each other with empathy.
- Have contentment and hope in God.
- Stay motivated and cultivate positive energy in our works.
- Walk with Faith “God please guide me, please navigate me towards your path.”
- Create opportunities to pray together for more light from god and practical wisdom.
- Build trust and make each other and refrain from breaking each others spirits.
- Hold on to the sense of purpose and strive to fulfill our potentialities.
She ended her presentation by saying
“God relieves all our challenges when we talk to Him.”
Sis Nasim Walji’s message was loud and clear; to hold on to the rope of Allah swt and walk together as a collective in faith and resilience.
Later on in the afternoon we visited St. Odilias Dispensary which has been registered as a Level 4 hospital due to its high standard services.
We met sister Mary Grace from Uganda (the one in Blue). She is a caregiver for the elderly and the sick. She shared with us her works in Uganda, challenges they face and encouraged us to persue this service to God with zeal and full faith.
She told me that “we don’t have to verbally speak our faith to people, we can do so through acts of service and through or conduct and good behavior, people will see who we are and would want to serve the same God we do.”
She emphasized on starting small, “there is power in humble beginnings, do not be disheartened when your spirit is shaken during service to humanity, start small and God through His eminent ways will open doors for you, but you have to remain humble and consistent.”
She spoke on the importance of looking after the elderly in our communities, support families who are less fortunate and strive to make people smile and encouraged physical touch (hugs and handshakes) with the less fortunate, the sick and the old for many a times no one touches them.
Sister Bernadette (in grey) is a practicing nurse and the one who is fully incharge of St.Odilias dispensary. She shared with us that they do collaborations with communities and hold medical camps, she is proud to have a Muslim dentist (Bilal) working with her and she extended her hand and promised to assist us in all our activities that need medical support.
Sister Zuhra (the one in a cream scarf) is a general practitioner from Mbeya Tanzania. She and her husband run an organization of Muslim doctors where they plan, organize and do activities that help to make medical services accessible to their communities.
Our practical take home:
- Make use of every resource person in your reach to make your communities better.
- Start projects and be consistent to make sure they don’t fall.
- Collaborate with others for in togetherness there is strength.
- Don’t fear to start small, many have the money and not the time. Capitalize on the time you have and invite those with money to work with you.
- Rely fully in God and ask Him to strengthen your intentions.
May God bless us all with this beautiful endeavour to serve our humanity in faith and proactively work towards the greater good in the coming of our Awaited Saviour Imam Al Mahdi ajfs a.s and Prophet Isa a.s.
Catholic Shia Dialogue Day 3.
On this day we held discussions on what next steps that can be actioned by Benedictine and Shia sisters to promote interfaith religious dialogue to achieve unity in God.
Sister Israa Safieddine did a presentation on paradigm shift with the follow key insights:
– There is value in repetition to promote remembrance -We need to remind each other of our individual and social religious responsibilities.
– We need to focus more on the commonalities we have, she highlighted as we grow closer to God ,our differences become less visible.
We later had group discussions on how to advance the Intereligious dialogue and we agreed to:
- Have a training with our fellow sisters and share about the dialogue in the community
- To hold formal and informal events to promote intereligious dialogue.
Sayyid Mohadess later took us through Women and Islamic Mysticism. It was absolutely a profound topic getting deeper into the stages of Islamic spirituality.
Sayyed Mohadess highlighted the following which will help unify us in God:
- There should be willingness to have mutual dialogues with Shias in favour of supporting mutual areas of understanding.
- Recognizing that there is no monopoly for salvation -respect for both prophet Muhammad and Prophet Isa.
We identified so many commonalities between the two parties and it was agreed that Catholics and Shias are brothers and Sisters in Faith and should therefore work together towards achieving closeness to God.
Day 3 take home:
- Intereligious dialogue should be seen as a new gospel where we are united in the belief of one God.
- Status does not equate your closeness to God ,being humbe in service and discipline,show it by serving God and His people.
- Help people enrich their relationships with God.
In the evening, we met fellow Shia brothers who were in Kenya for a summer program at Tangaza University College.
Catholic Shia Dialogue Day 4
We visited Tangaza college for a morning of dialogue.
Dr. Shomali had an opportunity to present to the invitees his experiences and shared with us his journeys through the Christian Muslim dialogue.
He highlighted that unity amongst different faiths is paramount to growth of any society.
We should be tolerant, respectful and protective of each others faiths and houses of worship.
We should focus on our commonalities and build up on them and work on minimizing our differences.
He encouraged each one of us to draw back into our purpose, serve God and humanity with humility.
He said that we are all seeking the kingdom of God through our own special ways, those ways should include living in harmony with others.
Different attendees got a chance to ask questions that they had, it was noted in the forum that there is dear need for interfaith relationships and dialogues in our communities.
Stereotypes surrounding religions and beliefs should be broken and explained in the most loving ways to others nd invite each other to talk and learn from each other
It was noted too that there is a yearning to get together but we lack the technical know how to do so and thus we all agreed that we will spread the gospel of unity in the smallest and best ways we know how.
Later that afternoon, both Muslim and Catholic sisters together with Father William Skuldarek visited the Jaffery Islamic Centre.
We were taken around the complex and the sisters got an opportunity to enter the mosque, ask questions and even perform a prayer.
It was an amazing moment seeing our Catholic sisters mesmerized and comfortable in the mosque.
They got a chance to ask burning questions they had and quench our thirst that we had for showing off our place of worship.
On Saturday the 10th after Fajr prayers, we had a small farewell get together with Sheikh Shomali, Sayyid Muhadess and fellow Shia sisters.
We went through how the program was, we talked about how to propagate what we have learnt and how best to move forward after this.
Sheikh Shomali gifted us with two sets of books (1. Anga ya Karbala, 2. Spirit of God and Son of Mary).
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