Don’t Miss the Revolution

While following the news reports of the protests in Egypt, I’ve been struck by two things: how many of the protesters are young and how much they have dashed the stereotypes of the West by providing evidence of Muslim-Christian solidarity in their struggle.

It seems that out of the muck and mire of poverty and violence in the region (both state-supported violence and religious-extremist-supported violence) a common humanity has been able to emerge. That this humanity is strong enough to rise above religious divisions without abandoning religious faith is a piece of astonishing good news.

Those of us who are attuned to the centrality of worship, the gravity of ritual, and the power of religious symbol, may grasp this point better perhaps than our secular counterparts and friends.

For me, a witness to common humanity emerged after the horrifying suicide attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria on New Year’s eve which left 21 worshippers dead and 70 wounded.

President Mubarak decried the assault. But what impressed me more was the act of thousands of ordinary Muslims who voluntarily gathered for the Christmas liturgy in Coptic Churches on January 6 in order to serve as human shields.

The early days of the protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo also gave evidence of a spirit of solidarity between Muslim and Christian Egyptians—a solidarity greater than anything we had been led to expect from the usual run of reporting on the Middle East. The Catholic News Agency reports on it here.

A photoblogger posted this picture of Christians protecting Muslims at prayer in Tahrir Square, at MSNBC. “We all stood by each other” she wrote.

The Reuters news service posted a story yesterday that bore witness to the same phenomenon. The photo said more than words.

Christian liturgy has not been absent, nor even distant from these events. The Tablet reports that “Thousands of Egyptian Muslims protesting against the Government of Hosni Mubarak yesterday joined a Mass. ‘In the name of Jesus and Muhammad we unify our ranks. We will keep protesting until the fall of the tyranny,’ Fr Ihab al-Kharat said in his sermon.”

I have been reflecting on the opening of Gaudium et Spes, where it says “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and the hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.” (GS 1). This is the voice of faith, and it speaks to us today as incisively as when it was first written.

Let’s be clear. There is nothing “necessary” or “inevitable” about human solidarity under circumstances of civil unrest in this world. Times of turmoil offer unparalleled opportunities to seek advantage for one’s own kind, to indulge hatred, and to settle old scores. People are capable of attacking one another like wolves.

The fact that something different is happening should cause us to sit up, take notice, praise God, and pray hard. May it continue.

Rita Ferrone

Rita Ferrone is an award-winning writer and frequent speaker on issues of liturgy and church renewal in the Roman Catholic tradition. She is currently a contributing writer and columnist for Commonweal magazine and an independent scholar. The author of several books about liturgy, she is most widely known for her commentary on Sacrosanctum Concilium (Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium, Paulist Press). Her most recent book, Pastoral Guide to Pope Francis's Desiderio Desideravi, was published by Liturgical Press.

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2 responses to “Don’t Miss the Revolution”

  1. Diana Macalintal

    Absolutely!

    Not to equate the two at all, but your piece resonated with me as I watched a PBS documentary tonight about the past 25 years of NASA’s mission into space. The narrator spoke of how the US and Russia had led the major efforts at space exploration out of a sense of fierce competition against the other. But with the end of the Cold War and the Skylab mission, they joined together, first with Mir, then with the International Space Station to share their knowledge and to work together on what has become a global effort.

    If the US and Russia can do it in the name of exploration, and if Egyptian Muslims and Christians can do it in the name of freedom, then perhaps conservative and progressive Catholics can do it in the name of true worship of the Father in Sprit and truth.

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  2. Bill deHaas

    Thanks, Rita – you give life to the eucharist by linking to the inherent social justice issues.

    Here is a link to Bishop Wester’s opening talk at the SWLC in which he also expresses the eucharist and social justice connections:

    http://www.icatholic.org/article/welcome-address-to-the-49th-annual-southwest-liturgical-706616

    Key point: “In reading through the general instruction of the Roman Missal, at the end of paragraph two, it states that the Mass is at once a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Therefore, justice is truly achieved and all is right with creation, we included. And yet this justice is not simply vertical. It’s also horizontal. It is also, in the liturgy, social justice. We gather together at the Eucharist in a way that is without parallel in any other human gathering.

    “As Ronald Knox wrote during the Second World War, ‘How can we be one with Christ and not one in Christ?’ Gathered around Christ’s Word and Christ’s table, we become profoundly aware that we are together in peace, united in our being loved by Christ and in our love for Christ. We are truly in right relationship with each other, living for a few precious moments without competition, rancor, jealousy, hatred or indifference. We are one in our union with and in Jesus Christ.”

    It reminds me of Paul VI’s last encyclical, Evangelii Nuntiandi: “…..said that one of the most powerful forces of evangelization is witnessing. He went on to say the only catechists of religion and spirituality that will be listened to in the future are people, who not only speak words, but rather people who also give witness to gospel values in behavior, people who walk the talk.

    No mention of denominations; religions, etc…..just the heart of witness by humanity.

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