But we also belong to a much older, more expansive family: the human family. We hear of this family in the Book of Genesis, when God creates human beings, male and female, in His Image and Likeness. In preaching to the pagan people of Athens, St. Paul appealed to the fact that all people are created by this same God, Who works in everyone's life. He said
"It is He who gives to all life and breath and everything else. From one stock he made every nation of mankind to dwell on the face of the earth....They were to seek God, yes, to grope for Him, and perhaps eventually to find Him - though He is not really far from any one of us. In Him we live and move and have our being..."
Notice that Paul does not say that it's Jews or Christians who live and move and have their being in God. All of us, belonging to the same human family, coming from one stock, one Divine DNA, live and move and have our being in God. God's Spirit lives in all of us, creatively moving each of us closer and closer to Him.
This truth penetrated deep into my heart when I met Mouna. Mouna is an African, from the Ivory Coast. She grew up speaking French. She was my deceased mother's favorite aide at the nursing home. Her pet name for Mom, who'd entered a child-like, peaceful, and happy state of dementia, was "Baby Benincasa." She counseled the other aides to have patience with Mom if Mom threw her own elderly version of a tantrum.
When Mom died, Mouna was devastated. Sadly, her pay at the nursing home was not enough, so this woman with the charism of working with loving care with the elderly, had gotten a trucker's license and was on the road when she received the news. She called my sisters and me individually, seeking information about the funeral, and promised to work with her employer to be able to be with us. And she was. This young, statuesque, beautiful black woman, moving with humble grace, dressed in a simple long dress, attended the wake and funeral and breakfast with the greatest love and reverence. She wept quietly at the coffin, and embraced us with loving, consoling affection. She even asked to give a short eulogy at the funeral Mass, and she did.
Oh - did I mention that Mouna is a Muslim, whose family has both Muslims and Christians who get along famously? That she told me that she used her prayer rug to pray at the nursing home during her breaks? That I could see God's Image and Likeness in her tender eyes?
Recently I read a post which angered me; it spoke of "those Muslim refugees who would behead people." One man wrote that his AK 47 was at the ready. How many people who write and believe posts like this have met a Muslim? Enjoyed his/her friendship? Worked alongside one? How many realize and accept that we all belong to the human family created by God, that we all live and move and have our being in God, are enlightened by the Holy Spirit?
Yes, I believe that Christians have the fullness of belief because we know and believe in the Trinity, in the wondrous Good News that Jesus, Son of God, humbled himself to take on human flesh and redeemed us by his blood on the cross. But it is denying the absolute power of God's Love if we deny that God is at work in all souls and that every soul contains His Presence.
I wrote this reflection with my heart on fire:
No words to describe it. The anger, the hurt inside me.
People glad they have their assault rifles to use against those Muslim refugees.
If they'd been at my Mom's funeral, they would have seen a real-live Muslim in the flesh
but she didn't look scary, just very sad. She was Mom's favorite aide. Mom loved her like a daughter.
She cried. She read a poem
about God welcoming Mom to His garden.
She was brave. She told everyone she was a Muslim but said
"We all believe in the same God."
I held her in my arms as she sobbed in front of our priest, our people.
I remember how she buzzed against Mom's cheek with her full soft lips, how
she was the one who could get Mom to eat when no one else could, how
Mom recognized love when she could no longer say the word.
And so-called Christians talk about assault rifles.
Unfortunately, for some Christians - and I mean Christians from every group - Christianity is not a family; it's a tribe. For some Muslims, Islam is not a family; it's a tribe. Families that are healthy are expansive; they recognize the goodness and gifts in each other and accept the differences. Often one family becomes the extended family of another, especially with marriage. My in-law children and their families are part of my family! But tribes often battle each other, like gangs, trying to gain turf. Tribes are elitist; no one else is better. People who are tribal lose their personal identities in the tribe's identity and follow leadership, even bad leadership, without analytical thought.
For Christians who follow Jesus as their Way, Truth, and Life, remember this: Jesus went outside the walls of his Jewish tribe. He treated the cast-out leper, the Roman centurion, the Samaritan woman, with loving courtesy. Because he flouted the "rules" he was given the most shameful death: crucifixion outside the walls of the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Can we move outside the walls of ingrained prejudice and superiority? Can we accept that our largest family encompasses all of God's children? Can we accept that God hears not only the prayers of a Christian, but the prayers of a young Muslim woman kneeling on a prayer rug?