Mercy in Christianity and Islam

As ordered by the late pope St. John Paul II the first Sunday of Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday which is April 3 this year. We are also within the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy which Pope Francis opened last 8 December 2015.

With mercy as the motto of his papacy Pope Francis is hoping that this yearlong celebration of God’s compassion will be “a true moment of encounter with the mercy of God.” This is a challenge for Catholics worldwide. In a very special way it is a strong and urgent call for Christians in Mindanao that this “true moment of encounter with the mercy of God” can also be possible if we get engaged in that form of Interreligious dialogue we usually call, “dialogue of faith experience.” Practically, this means that Christians and Muslims come together and share in a prayerful manner their experience of God’s/Allah’s mercy.

I am suggesting this because I am inspired and touched by the words of Pope Francis on this point in his papal instruction called Bull of Indiction on the Jubilee of Mercy. He refers to the concept of mercy in Judaism and Islam saying, “There is an aspect of mercy that goes beyond the confines of the Church.” Urging Catholics to use the Year of Mercy as an opportunity to learn about Islam and other religions he hopes that doing this would “eliminate every form of close-mindedness and disrespect… violence and discrimination.”

We in the Bishops-Ulama Conference have started doing this already. Firstly, we had urged last 10 December 2015 in Cagayan de Oro our brother and sister Christians and Muslims to shift for a while into Intra-faith Dialogue by sincerely examining our personal biases and prejudices. We felt that these negative feelings have been aggravated by the BBL controversies and related issues. Secondly, during our celebration of the World Interfaith Harmony Week here in Davao which we organized with other interfaith groups we were able to hold a public forum on Mercy in Christianity and Islam. The resource persons were Fr. Larry Sabud, SA, a Marist missionary assigned in the Diocese of Digos and Datu Musolini Lidasan, director of a Muslim institute called Al-Qalam of the Ateneo de Davao University.

For the 44th general assembly of the Bishops-Ulama Conference this coming September 2016 I will propose this as an urgent priority for the bishops and ulama in Mindanao. The threat of more and intensified terrorist attacks by the ISIS-related local jihadists motivates this urgency. But more importantly, our shared knowledge of mercy in the Holy Bible and in the Holy Qur’an will surely deepen our inter-religious and ecumenical dialogues. The reason is because so far, for the past 20 years, our focus has been in those three forms of dialogue: dialogue of life, dialogue of collaboration and dialogue of experts or doctrinal exchange. The experience of mercy by both Christians and Muslim can make faith sharing meaningful and fruitful. (End of part one)