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THE ANNUAL RAMADAN FRIENDSHIP DINNER
Father Thomas Mischel
Good evening everyone
In his letter to the Christians of Rome, Saint Paul said about 2000 years ago that we should rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.
I think of this every time I take part in an Iftar to break the fast with Muslims during Ramadan. And it’s something I really love to do. I think that the breaking the fast at this moment during Ramadan must be one of the happiest times of the year for Muslims. When you think about it, the whole process of taking part in a long and difficult fast all day long – but not doing it alone, as a private act of devotion to God, but as a part of a community, who are doing this, expressing together your obedience, expressing together your worship of God. And then, at the end of this, to break the fast together.
You've done this difficult thing for God in obedience and love and now you relax. Now you celebrate.
It’s a beautiful moment, I think, the Iftar and I've always felt that way. I was trying to think of when was the first Iftar I ever took part in. I believe it was 1973. I was a student in Cairo, in Egypt, and I was only there a few weeks before the month of Ramadan began. And one evening I was taking a walk in the city in some neighborhood I 'd never been in before and it was about ten minutes I guess or so before the sunset. So I was walking along the street just taking a walk enjoying myself and suddenly one of the doors opened and a man came out and grabbed me by the arm and said, you have to come in to break the fast with us. And I said, Well I'm not a Muslim, and he said, That doesn't matter, that doesn't matter, he says, We would be honored if you would break the fast with us, he says, because for us Muslims it's a blessing that God sends a guest to break the fast at the Iftar.
I'm looking around this room with 900 of us. I thought how much blessing there is moving around the room this evening. It's a beautiful moment. It’s a sacred moment. And I think that the development that's taken place in recent years whereby Muslims are taking the occasion of the Iftar dinner to invite their Jewish and Christian friends and others to break the fast with them, I think its a beautiful custom. I've seen it grow over the past 20 or 30 years.
I can remember it wasn't such an organized thing in the past but it not only gives Muslims an opportunity to share with their Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters their joy at being obedient and loving to God but it also gives us an opportunity to share this sacred moment with Muslims, to enjoy it.
I think one of the most beautiful things about the sacred nature of the Iftar dinner is its very casual happy atmosphere. People have done an act of worship all day long and now they're relaxed, they're happy, they're showing hospitality, they're eating and drinking together. It's a beautiful thing.
I think that it's not an accident or just by chance that the Iftar has grown to be one of the really beautiful initiatives of Muslims extended to Jews and to Christians. I remember in a letter of one of the leading Turkish intellectuals, Fethullah Gülen, he wrote in 1998 in a letter to Pope John Paul II, he said, We have to come up with new activities that expressly build fraternity and friendship among the followers of the three religions of Abraham.
This is something that –all over the world now– that people are organizing the Iftar dinners as an expression of friendship and as an instrument to build that friendship.
Now I think that this is really important for a second reason, the second reason is that, the different acts of worship that we have, whether we're talking about reciting the Psalms, whether we're talking about listening to Sephardic chants, whether we're taking about hearing the poetry of Mavlana, of Rumi, whatever it might be, these are the moments when the divine is breaking into our consciousness, into our society. These are times when those of us who are Jews and Christians and Muslims, for whom God is the central reality of our lives, really comes to the forefront of our consciousness. And we have to share these moments. We have to do them together.
I'd like to mention to you ... I'd like to read to you how this was expressed by this man that I've mentioned, Fethullah Gülen, because I think that he catches the moment, the sort of moment we're in right now of an Iftar dinner. And he says, Moments like these excite our souls and we're charmed by the mysteries that pertain to God. The charm of these mysteries that comes galloping from the depths of our inner world and which spreads to all our senses, this charm which tints the garden of heaven in our thoughts and which flows past our lips like a cascade of inspiration, thus charmed, we stand awe-struck. This charm, this recognition of the mysteries pertaining to God, reaches a higher level when those blessed days and nights, when limitless abundance and bounty are showered upon us. This is true to such an extent that everything around ascends us in a state of joy, every corner takes on a spiritual hue, and the excitement in our souls reaches its apex – or, in Sufi terms, our souls reach their heaven of maturity.
I would hope that this evening and occasions that we have to share what is important what is joyful what is meaningful for our three religions that we realize that these are not just matters of public of... what would you say, they're not just matters of courtesy or politeness. No they're matters when the one God who's at the center of all of our lives comes to the fore in our shared consciousness.
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