These words were written about 60 years ago:

At the present time, the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming a hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world power. Moslem writers say, "When the locust swarms darken countries, they bear on their wings these Arabic words: 'We are God's host, each of us has ninety-nine eggs, and if we had a hundred, we should lay waste the world, with all that is in it.' " Mary & the Moslems by Fulton Sheen

As we stand on the brink of war, let us turn now, especially to Mary. She showed us the way to banish Communism, a miracle few would have ever imagined could come to pass in our lifetimes. She points the way to living in harmony with Islam. Perhaps the Marists could sponsor a World Day of Prayer of both Christian and Islamic Devotion to Our Lady to intercede, not just for this war but for the future of our inter-religious relations.

Pass it on. Let us devote the month of the Annunciation to fasting and prayer for lasting peace between these great traditions.

pax, amor et bonum,

johnboy

That's one spooky prediction by the late Bishop Sheen. If he were alive today, he probably wouldn't be surprised by any of this.

Good suggestion on turning to Mary for intercession.

Continuing our consideration of Mary & Islam:

How Mary Holds Muslims and Christians in Conversation

By Cardinal William Keeler With permission from the Cardinal himself

Summary; Virgin Mary is mentioned 34 times in the Quran more than the whole New Testament. Venerated by Christians and Muslims, Mary holds us to work together for Justice and peace, sharing and love.

1- Recent high points of Catholic-Muslim relations

It is very much an honor for me, following the completion of my term as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, to be with you this evening. My presence here is essentially symbolic, a sign of your appreciation for what Dr. John Borelli and others are doing, a tribute to the many who work with us and to the people of faith I am privileged to serve. I have had the grace to witness even before my term as president of the conference a growing relationship between Catholics and Muslims. In 1989, as Cardinal O'Connor, Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles and I were assigned to develop the draft of a pastoral message on the search for peace in the Middle East, we met with many Muslim leaders here in the United States and, at your suggestion, with Muslim religious and civic leaders in Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

In addition, during our visit to the camps on the West Bank and Gaza, we listened to local Palestinian leaders as well as to civic and religious leaders representing other points of view throughout the Middle East. It was there I had seen in the early 1960s the unique and uniquely difficult situation of the Christians in the region. By 1989 the sense of pressure they experienced had been heightened, and many whole families were leaving the Holy Land. From the 1989 trip I treasure very especially the memory of our meeting in Damascus with Sheikh Ahmed Kaftaro, the grand mufti of Syria. With that meeting began a friendship which continued on this side of the ocean; in successive years he came to Baltimore, and each time we were able to discuss a number of issues of common interest.

Last year, through the goodness of Imam Bashar Arafat, I was a guest in a Muslim home for a dinner with him. I intend to recall later one other incident involving the grand mufti of Syria, whose own key role in the relationships between Catholics and Muslims was underscored by his participation at Assisi at the interfaith service for peace led there by Pope John Paul II, on Oct. 27, 1986. As to our own working together in the United States, I think also of the interfaith pilgrimage in Baltimore coinciding with the special day of prayer for peace in Assisi on Jan. 9, 1993, when the situation in the former Yugoslavia had become so tense several years ago.

At that time I was so pleased that we could visit a mosque in Baltimore and then conclude our evening with a Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption, the historic first Catholic cathedral of this land, with the imam present with us and later to join us at the supper which broke the day-long fast. That supper was characterized in a special way by the dialogue between the imam and the other guests as he explained graciously and with great clarity some of the Muslim practices and beliefs with which Christian and Jew alike were unfamiliar.

More recently, it was a joy to see some of you at World Youth Day in Denver with Pope John Paul, to tell him at supper what you had told me at the reception in the afternoon and then to introduce you to him and let you tell him of your own appreciation of the message he brought to young people and their response to it. Of course, the award this evening is in fact a recognition of the cooperative spirit of trust and of friendship which has developed between many connected to our two organizations. Dr. Cheema and I have rejoiced at the labors of others who assisted in developing the agreed statement which we were happy to sign with respect to the Cairo conference last year, and what a positive impact that statement had! We could stand before the American public as Muslims and Catholics expressing our principles on the issues of population and development and, precisely because we stood together, we were able to attract attention and serious consideration from those who might otherwise be inclined to ignore our message.

Much more awaits us in the future. We need to keep looking for ways for our formal dialogue to continue so that we can move along, especially theologically, in our understanding of one another. Some of you here tonight came to Baltimore Aug. 9,1995 to participate in a session of dialogue at the headquarters of Catholic Relief Services, where we all learned a great deal from our guest-speaker, Cardinal Francis Arinze. I must say that we Catholics were honored that you came to Baltimore to hear one of us speak and to engage in dialogue. Also, we did have a dialogue, and we touched on religious and social questions.

2- Mary Holds us in coversation

Tonight I want to take a few moments to move our theological discussion along a little more and to underscore publicly some ways for possible cooperation that I raised on the occasion of our meeting in Baltimore. Today Roman Catholics celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus. We recall that at the moment of the annunciation, when the angel Gabriel informed her that she was to be the mother of Jesus, he saluted her as "full of grace" (Lk. 1 :28). Christians for centuries have called her "the All Holy One' (Panagia).

In 1854 Pope Pius IX gave official voice to the belief of Catholics that "the Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God preserved free from all stain of original sin" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 491). The pope's words expressed the Catholic view of the full extent of the holiness which by God's gift Mary enjoyed even in her mother's womb. The Qur'an recalls that Mary's mother, before she gave birth to the daughter she hardly expected, had prayed: "O Lord, I dedicate to your service that which is within my womb, one totally free; accept it from me" (The Imrans m:35). Indeed, to Mary herself, according to the Qur'an, the angel said, "God has chosen you and made you pure (tahharaki) and he has chosen you above the women of the universe" (The Imrans, III:42). For according to the Qur'an, Mary, "a saintly woman (siddigh) (The Table v:75) was destined, together with Jesus, her son, to be " a sign (ayyah) to the universe" (The Prophets XXI:91), to play a unique role in the history of salvation.

"What a propitious moment it is, therefore, that finds Christians and Muslims together on a major feast of the Virgin Mary, It is certainly true that in her very person there is a meeting point, or at least a stepping stone, between Christianity and Islam."

Catholics are delighted to learn that there are more verses in the Qur'an 34 of them which name the Blessed Virgin Mary than there are in the whole New Testament! They speak of her presentation in the temple in Jerusalem, which Christian tradition also records, of her purification, of the annunciation, of her virginal conception of Jesus and of the birth of her son, the Messiah. It is no surprise then that just over 30 years ago the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in their historic document Nostra Aetate (Oct. 28, 1965), wrote: "Upon the Muslims too the church looks with esteem.

They adore one God, living and enduring, merciful and all powerful, maker of heaven and earth and speaker to humankind.... They also honor Mary, his virgin mother; at times they call on her too with devotion" (No. 3). What a propitious moment it is, therefore, that finds Christians and Muslims together on a major feast of the Virgin Mary to celebrate the mutual esteem for one another which befits men and women in the faith tradition of Abraham, "God's friend" (Is. 41:8; las. 2:23; Women IV: 125). It is certainly true that in her very person there is a meeting point, or at least a stepping stone, between Christianity and Islam.

Indeed, as the Qur'an itself says: "To those who believe, God has set an example (mathalan). In Mary, who preserved her chastity ..., who put her trust in the words of her Lord and his scriptures and was one of the truly devout" (Prohibi tion LX~1:12). It was Sheikh Kaftaro, the grand mufti of Syria, who first gave me an Arabic translation of the Hail Mary, our most familiar prayer to Our Lady. Last year Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, the archbishop of Sao Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, went with me to St. Joseph Hospital to visit the sheikh, who was convalescing from surgery. There I reminded the mufti of how he had given me the Arabic text of the Hail Mary. Cardinal Neves was inspired to say to me, "Let us pray together the Hail Mary for the speedy recovery of our friend, Sheikh Kaftaro." And this we did in a way which showed the deepest bonds of friendship and support.

3- Who is Mary for us

It is true, of course, that for all of the esteem and honor which Muslims and Christians have for Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her role in our separate ways of prayer, she is also the symbol of what radically divides us and what challenges us to dialogue. For Christians she is the all-holy Theotokos, the mother of God, the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate. For Muslims she is the mother of Jesus, the Messiah, "who was no more than God's apostle and his Word, which he cast to Mary: a spirit from him" (Women IV:171). While this radical difference in faith forever separates us, it paradoxically also holds us forever in conversation with one another. And this conversation can, and should be, as the Second Vatican Council taught Catholics, a jihad, a "striving for mutual understanding." And the council fathers went on to say of the Christians and Muslims together, "On behalf of all peoples, let them make common cause of safe guarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom" (Nostra Aetate, 3).

4- Dialogue between Muslims and Catholics in USA

Here in the United States we have done just this. One thinks immediately of the fruitful collaboration of Muslims and Christians for the common good in Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit, not to mention the helpful and friendly conversations between Muslim leaders and Catholic thinkers held under the auspices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops here in Washington, D.C., just a few years ago.

I recall also very distinctly how when word first came to us that Pope John Paul II would be visiting the United States in 1987, I suggested at the meeting of the Administrative Committee of our National Conference of Catholic Bishops that there should be an interfaith service, preferably at Los Angeles, at which the Holy Father might participate and thus demonstrate what had already begun to happen in that city. And it came to pass, a service in which Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists joined with local Catholics in listening to sacred readings, each in turn offering reflections. The Muslim speaker was Dr. Maher Hathout, who in time became a member of the American Muslim Council board of directors when it was established. Pope John Paul spoke last of all to underscore his deep appreciation for what was being accomplished.

At an academic level we are blessed by the faculty and programs at our great universities represented here tonight, The Catholic University of America, Georgetown University, Howard University. You and your programs have aided us much in our formal dialogue. Now the times call for renewed efforts on our part to foster a climate of mutual respect and tolerance, not only in a world grown largely impervious to faith, but sadly ever more ready to think in terms of racial and cultural stereo types. There are those commentators who at the close of the 20th century envision a coming clash of civilizations which they are ever more ready to see as a confrontation between Islam and the West. But here in America, Muslims and Christians are factually in a position to show that the circumstances of democracy can just as well foster a dialogue among the believers in the one God.

5- Catholics and Muslims together

Cardinal Francis Arinze put the point well in his "Message on the Occasion of Id al Fitr" at the end of Ramadan 1423/1993. He said: "A challenge which faces us in this increasingly pluralist world is to show that genuine religion, based on belief in God and the desire to do his will, is not a divisive and disruptive element in society, but it is rather the firmest foundation for love of others, for justice and for a more fraternal and free society. To those who believe God is one, Creator of all, it follows that the human family is one. We share a common history and common hopes for the future. We who believe that God's will is sovereign over all humankind know that it is the will of God that every human person be treated with respect.'

This fall I had the privilege of hosting His Holiness Pope John Paul II in Baltimore. One of the events we planned was a prayer service at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, which included guests from various Christian churches and our friends in the Muslim and Jewish communities. The Holy Father chose to speak on religious freedom: "Today religious tolerance and cooperation among Americans cannot simply be a pragmatic or utilitarian understanding, a mere accommodation to the fact of diversity. No, the source of your commitment to religious freedom is itself a deep religious conviction.

Religious tolerance is based on the conviction that God wishes to be adored by people who are free: a conviction which requires us to respect and honor the inner sanctuary of conscience in which each person meets God" (Origins, 25:18 [Oct. 19, 1995]: 316). Pope John Paul went on to speak to the very interests which brings us together now: "To all believers in the one true God, I express the respect and esteem of the Catholic Church.

As I said at the United Nations, the world must learn to live with 'difference' if a century of coercion is to be followed by a century of persuasion. I assure you, dear friends, that the Catholic Church is committed to the path of dialogue in her relations with Judaism and Islam, and I pray that through that dialogue new understanding capable of securing peace for the new world may be forged. "You have shown in this community how dialogue and cooperation can lead to improvements in civic life: in the work you have done together to promote the teaching of moral values in the public schools and in providing housing for the poor. May that work be blessed and may it increase as your dialogue of faith deepens in the years ahead." The times call for a new dedication to dialogue and cooperation between our faith communities.

6-What we can do together

In my final presidential address to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, I built on our conversations with Muslim representatives in Baltimore and on my discussions in which I had participated with other Christians and with Jewish leaders to propose several ways in which the Catholic Church in the United States should cooperate to address areas where there is broad agreement on what we ought to do together:

1. To promote a restoration of "basic moral teaching in the public school" - something already happening through in terfaith cooperation in manycommunities.

2. To "oppose, within the constitutional limits already acknowledged, pornography in all forms, especially that directed at children."

3. To approach entertainment media leaders and advertisers regarding immorality and violence in the media. 4. To work with the news and en tertainment media to help them under stand and convey the deep and genuine religious and moral dimensions of life, which so often seem strained out of reporting and programming.

We prayed the Hail Mary with Cardinal Lucas Neves of Sao Paolo and Sheikh Kaftaro, the grand mufti of Syria. The Arabic translation of the Hail Mary was given to Cardinal Keeler by the grand Mufti himsef

This is crucial in our country, where each week more people participate in public worship than in the spectator sports, which receive so much more attention. A recent example of this restricted vision where matters of faith are concerned comes from the Balkans. Rabbi Arthur Schneier encouraged recent joint prayers for the success of the Dayton meetings seeking a peace accord for the region. From the Serbian patriarch, two Catholic Croatian cardinals and the principal Muslim authority came calls for peace. These were echoed in the United States by religious leaders of Christian churches and of the Jewish and Muslim faith communities. I suggested to Rabbi Schneier that he bring this to the attention of Cable News Network. What a helpful and dramatic report it would be to show on a single weekend the prayers being offered in synagogues, churches and mosques for God's gift of light for those working for peace, prayers for God's gift of lasting peace with justice for the re gion! But typically, this was not to be.

7- Conclusion

Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Messiah, was ever ready to do the will of God. In Catholic spirituality, believers recall the words she spoke to the angel who brought the news of God's plan for her. She responded, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38). This is the attitude of every true believer in the living God, the Lord of the universe. May God be with us as we seek to discover his holy will for us and to do it.

Virgin Mary Seen as a Model for All Muslims
Interview with Islamic Theologian Sherazade Hushmand
ROME, DEC. 10, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Muslims venerate Mary, the Pope reminded the faithful Sunday during his Angelus address. Iranian Muslim theologian Sherazade Hushmand affirms that view.

There are verses in the Koran that include a significant prayer to God by Mary's mother, Hushmand explained in this interview with Vatican Radio.

--Q: Of what significance is the figure of Mary to Muslims?

--Hushmand: She is very present in the Koran, which presents her, specifically, as Mary Immaculate. In the third sura, beginning with verse 34 and subsequent ones, the Koran speaks about this aspect of Mary, about her total purity.

Speaking of Mary, one of the verses talks about freedom. The woman of Hemram, who is Mary's mother, prays to God saying: "God, I dedicate to you the one I have in the womb, and I dedicate her so that she will be free, absolutely free."

This word is used only once in the Koran, and only for Mary. This freedom is an absolute freedom from all what might be seen as sin, evil, failure, weakness. Mary is pure of all this. Then comes God's affirmation: "I accept her."

--Q: Do all followers of Islam believe this?

--Hushmand: In Chapter 66, the last verse, 12, the Koran says: "Do you want me to give you a faithful example to follow, valid for all the world's believers?" Mary is proposed there as the example. This is very strong -- because not only is Mary an example and a symbol for Christians to follow, but also in the Koran, Mary becomes a symbol and model for all believers, also for Muslims themselves.

--Q: And what does this mean in everyday life?

--Hushmand: To have hope, to have a model to follow, to have such a pure woman to look up to and to go forward, a woman who had complete confidence in God. She is the example of confidence, total confidence in the Absolute, in the God who is Supreme Perfection and Beauty.

This is how we follow her, always having confidence, even in difficulties and in face of things we cannot understand.

Like her, who was asked to have a Son -- the Koran says -- without a material father, a physical father, and she trusted and went ahead. So, like her, we take her as model and trust God totally, including in difficult and hard moments of life.
ZE01121003

JB and Phil:

Apart from more Sufi-like accomodations, I have to ask an almost disrespectful question: Why would this purely patriarchal religion find Mary attractive? In other words, what does Mary embody for Muslims? Certainly an archetype for the power of the feminine is wanting in Muslim culture, but I wonder about the attraction to Mary, since it is couched so strongly in terms of purity. It may be a starting place for dialogue, but it could be that Mary is acceptable because she is presented in the Koran as so utterly beyond the human pale, and therefore not threatening. Of course, Mohammed's wives, or one in particular, was a powerful character, but she was controversial as a warrior type and doesn't seem to make the Islamic headlines these days as a restorative figure.

w.c., it seems that when a theology and spirituality have been developed heavily on the patriarchical side, it's natural that some kind of compensation would arise. In the case of Mary, she is a "natural" insofar as she really did play a major role in salvation history and is rightly regarded in Christianity as co-mediatrix. This kind of "correction" might satisfy in a psychological, platonic sort of way, without necessarily translating into a change in how men and women actually view and treat one another. It sort of maintains patriarchy while keeping the issue at "arm's length."

What follows is a quote from Jim Arraj which has relevance, here:

Keeping in mind this interaction between revelation and the archetypes, theologians could review the history of dogma and attempt to weigh the effect of archetypes on the development of dogma. Any one-sided perception of dogma, for example, viewing the Trinity as masculine, will call forth a compensating movement. One-sided perception makes energy flow from the conscious into the unconscious and intensifies the attractive power of the archetypes. An overly masculine view of God calls forth an increase of emphasis on Marian devotion. But since the forces at play are archetypal forces which are still unconscious, the arena of the development of dogma becomes the place where they will try to express themselves. From a theological point of view, it is possible to conceive of a situation where a genuine development of doctrine like the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption is influenced by this archetypal background. This would lead to another way to examine the claims of some theologians of the 19th century who said that while the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was true, it was not opportune to declare it a dogma.

See http://www.innerexplorations.com/catjc/jc8.htm for more on this.