MULTI-RELIGIOUS PRAYER
Climate change, the extinction of species and numerous other environmental problems mean that we as a human race are facing an epochal challenge. Our planet needs all of us, with all our strength. Through our prayers and our commitment in our religious communities, in the university and in society, we want to help ensure that religions become important players in the effort to achieve greater sustainability. From a global perspective, it is clear that we will only be able to change course and find the strength for the radicalism of a new beginning if religions also help. Their influence on people worldwide is of incalculable importance, and their spiritual resources can help us fight for the preservation of our planet with solidarity, strength and endurance. So let us come together from our different faith traditions to stand united for our planet and bring our commitment before God!
Our joint prayer every Thursday from 2-2:30 p.m. in the Room of One Bonn draws on the resources of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but also invites people from other traditions to pray together. We follow the tradition of multi-religious prayer as it has developed since the first world prayer meeting in Assisi in 1986, in which representatives of all major world religions participated.
WHAT IS MULTIRELIGIOUS PRAYER?
In multireligious prayer, members of different religions recite sacred texts in their own tradition in the same room in front of each other. All elements are treated equally and with mutual respect. Differences are accepted, the unfamiliar is explored and the familiar is rediscovered through the unfamiliar. These formally separate prayer elements are united by a common concern and theme. In our case, this common concern is our commitment to our planet, to climate protection, biodiversity and the preservation of the natural foundations of life for all living things.
Our liturgy, Faiths united for the Planet, is therefore characterised by independent prayer elements from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each selected with the topic of sustainability in mind. They are chosen not only to express our similarities, but also to preserve typical elements of our traditions. The same applies to the design of our common liturgical space, where representations of the different religions are displayed side by side.
Multireligious prayer is to be distinguished from forms of liturgical hospitality, in which one participates as a guest in the service of another religion. Here there is hardly any possibility to show with sufficient clarity that one respects others in their peculiarity and foreignness. Multireligious prayer is also to be distinguished from interreligious services, in which prayers are said together and a supposed unity is to be made visible. Here there is often the danger of monopolisation or superficiality, because the smallest possible common denominator is sought.
By praising, learning and asking questions together as a multi-religious community, we experience intimate aspects of other religions and denominations in their specific beauty and strangeness. How does your learning and your praise sound? How does this sound and this text affect me? Can one also be inspired by the strange? Perhaps some people are only now becoming aware of the foreign – this too has its own value. One cannot describe in theory what happens when one hears or joins in the praise of others – nothing replaces the beauty and shared richness of diversity.
WHAT IS JEWISH PRAYER?
Jewish prayer is learning, praise and guidance for life. It consists of the study of certain prescribed texts. It is the focused, regular reading of certain sections in a prayer book with quotations from antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times, in a fixed order, the recitation of which is prescribed for Jews at certain times of the day. This connects the worshippers with the generations before them and with each other: Jewish prayer creates Jewish community and is the basis for the future of Jewish life.
Are joint services possible from a Jewish point of view? No and yes. Prayer at certain times in Jewish community is only commanded for the people of Israel. But joint praise of God, joint learning and joint action is universally possible, wanted and desired. Multi-religious prayer does not mix anything, but respects the different perspectives. We do something together, we are united liturgically, but we remain distinct. From a Jewish perspective, multi-religious prayer is a meditation that leads into society and life in general. It does not replace obligatory prayers, but it is a shared learning of the universal questions and responsibilities that inspire all our lives.
WHAT IS MUSLIM PRAYER?
According to Qur’an sura 20, when Moses encountered God indirectly through the burning bush at Mount Sinai, God addressed him as follows: ‘O Mūsā! Certainly I am your Lord, so take off your shoes. You are in the sacred valley of Ṭuwā. And I have chosen you. So listen to what is inspired (as revelation). Certainly I am God. There is no god but Me. So serve Me and establish prayer in remembrance of Me’ (Q 20:11-14). This Mosaic experience of an indirect encounter with God plays a formative role in the consciousness of Muslims in relation to the performance of their prayer. That is, when performing the prayer, Muslims feel that they are in the presence of God. This idea is even more clearly expressed in the following verse: ‘To God belongs the east and the west; wherever you turn, there is God’s face. God is all-encompassing and all-knowing’ (Q 2:115).
But from a Qur’anic point of view, is there a possibility to experience this encounter with God in the context of other Abrahamic religions as well? In Sura 22:40, the Qur’an refers to the places of worship of Jews and Christians, namely the monasteries, churches and synagogues, alongside the mosques, as places ‘in which God’s name is praised abundantly’. In doing so, he seems to ascribe the same importance to the worship in these religions as Muslims ascribe to their own worship. Therefore, yes! Speaking with the Qur’an, it is indeed legitimate for Muslims to also experience an encounter with God in the context of Judaism and Christianity.
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN PRAYER?
Christian prayer and Christian worship is, on the one hand, the human commitment to God, through which people cultivate their devotion to God. But it is also God’s service to people, through which people experience strength for their lives. Christian prayer is therefore oriented towards God’s word to people, in order to authentically express God’s care and mercy for his creation in words. By the power of God’s spirit, it also takes human worries and needs, longings and hopes, afflictions and doubts into the relationship with God. It is therefore always a dialogue with God based on God’s word in the life-enabling power of God’s spirit.
Pope John Paul II was the first pope to actively and emphatically call for multi-religious prayers and to practice them in different forms. Pope Benedict XVI systematised his visionary ideas theologically and provided a specific rationale for the circumstances and forms in which prayer with the faithful of other religions is possible. Pope Francis has gone a step further and his encyclicals also include specific prayers inviting joint prayer between religions. So when we relate the clearly distinct prayers of the religions to each other through shared pieces of music in our multi-religious prayer and allow for the possibility of also following prayers from other religions, we are following the common theological line of these three recent popes. By focusing on the theme of the preservation of creation, we are incorporating the central theme of Pope Francis‘ pontificate.
OUR COMMON CONCERN
We come from the most diverse traditions, shaped by shared wisdom of faith and life, but also by tragic misunderstandings; we share great hopes and the first modest successes. We meet each other in awareness of our past, with honest intentions, with courage and a willingness to trust each other, in love and confidence. In our unity and diversity, we do not want to forget that you are one and the same. May our encounter with the past and our experiences in the present bring blessings for our future on our common earth.
Regular participation in multi-religious prayer creates a long-lasting process of cultivating humility and hospitality in the praying participants. Through this process, common prayer can grow into an appropriate platform where constructive dialogue can take place in mutual recognition.
By uniting in prayer across religious boundaries, we make ourselves vulnerable. We expose ourselves to the Other at our most intimate level and allow ourselves to be moved by it. We are interrupted in our habits and open to new ones. It is precisely such interruptions that our planet needs if we want to change our behaviour effectively and sustainably. And it is precisely this vulnerability that connects us to nature, which experiences its vulnerability anew every day in a painful way. Vulnerability enables creativity and encounters. In the protected space of the Room of One at the cloister of the Bonn Minster, we dare to face each other with our weaknesses, worries and doubts and take on what is perhaps the most important challenge of our time.
