You might remember - I mentioned in a previous blog - the kiss John Paul II gave a Koran offered him a delegation of Iraqi Muslims accompanying the Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans, Bishop Raphael Bidawid, Rome, and received at the Vatican, with the latter, May 14, 2000. When I happen to remember this gesture to one or the other, many refuse to believe me, as they feel baffled by such a gesture! Besides, if it was a little priest from home who claimed such an attitude, everyone will cry of outrage!
John Paul II would have become Muslim? Would he have lost his mind? I do not think we should give too much importance to this gesture! Muslims offered the Pope a copy of the Koran, what is most precious to them, and the Pope embraced as a sign of respect, that's all! Anyway, what a lovely sign of humility and evangelical brotherhood!
I thought of the episode yesterday at the annual diocesan day of training on Islam La Roche-sur-Yon, whose theme was precisely "Gospel and the Koran." It was recalled, among other things, this scene from the movie "Men and Gods" in which one sees the prior of Tibhérine, Christian de Chergé sitting at the table in his cell, with on it both the Bible and the Koran, which he said was a book that gave to Muslims but to all humans, "the taste of God." Magnificent
training time, which allowed us to discover a little of the interior, the richness of this book by which, for 13 centuries, hundreds of millions of Muslims have come to holiness: I checked almost every day, when I was a missionary in Mali!
Just an example, the verses about warriors that can be read there, as elsewhere in the Bible. In Sura 9, one finds indeed words that call to "fight the infidels," and Islamists s'appuyent on these verses for committing their crimes. However, the verses of Sura 5, calling for peace, are, them, the last verses given by the Prophet and therefore, chronologically, have more weight than the verses warriors in the breath of spiritual preaching of the prophet, at the end of his life in Mecca. Insist on verses warriors, so it's return the game of the Islamists, what we need to keep.
this small example, difficult, unfortunately, develop within the limited scope of this blog, to evoke the richness of what may discover an objective study of the Koran. But the most interesting is yet to be caught by the many verses that can walk up to God. This session gave us some beautiful and useful reading keys. So glad those unable to attend, among them, a nice delegation of fifteen people in the group fontenaisien meeting between Christians and Muslims.
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