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Inter-religious Gathering On 19th March 2022

Fr. Roobandasl

The Religious leaders of different religions and also Christian denominations were invited for an inter-religious response to the situation of our country on 19th March 2022 at 10.30 am. Friar Simon A. the Parish Priest of St. Sebastian Church was the host of the celebration. He stated the purpose of this meeting: as our common response to our world today. There were Muslim Leaders and lay persons from the Madhavaram Jamat, Jain Leader Shantilal from Puzhal, the Sikh leader Rajender Sing from the Gurudwara, the CSI representatives Nakshatraraj and Mathew from the Arul Church Madhavaram, Full-Gospel Church Pastor David Diraviaraj and Br. Andrews from Madhavaram, Hindu representative Muniswamy from Palaniappa Nagar, and Ashok and Shankar from Madhavaram.

Fr. Simon read a passage from John’s Gospel and gave an explained of the passage, saying, that Jesus speaks of love and it is love that unites all of us to gather here and express our desire to work together as one human family. Fr. Anthony Roobandoss from the Madhavaram church sang a Sanskrit sloka “Asathoma satgamaya...and a few other verses from Thirumandiram and Vallalar. Then the various representatives sang and prayed from their own religious following sources.

Then Fr. Simon invited the various representatives to share their view on the present situation of the people and what course of action that we could take as leaders from different religions. Then each one shared what they think of the present situation. The Muslim leaders said that we are all children of God and we co-existed in India harmoniously for so many years. But presently we see a lot of division and disharmony among people and especially created by the political leaders. One of them said that God will forgive any sin but not the sin of creating division and hatred. In the year of the pandemic, we all provided for the needs of the people without any discrimination of religions, caste and political lineage. We also prayed for all the people.

The Jain leader said that the feelings we have for the nation should be superior to one’s own religion. First love and then you will be united as one nation. We should not be divided on the basis of religions.

The Sikh leader said that sharing is of great value. And all of us have the same blood as there is no Muslim blood and Hindu blood. It is the same in all of us. There should be no forced conversion but we should respect all religions. We should gather more often to express our solidarity and oneness so that people see us as united.

The CSI pastor said that it has been predicted in the Bible all these kinds of pandemics and wars will come and it is becoming true in the context of today. We helped people without distinction during this situation and will continue to help people in love.

Fr. Simon also shared his view that he belongs to the Franciscan Order whose founder St. Francis of Assisi spoke of reconciliation and brotherhood with the Muslim King Sultan Al-Malik. Fr. Roobandoss said that we know that we have challenges but how are we to face all these challenges as religious leaders and representatives of our religion? Each one answered that we must first preach and respect our own religion and only then speak of unity among all religions. We must also preach about our shared common humanity whenever we preach and teach our own particular religious communities. We must invite the leaders of different religions to participate in our religious gatherings and functions so that people will see us as united and appreciating each other’s religions. We must follow our own ancestral religion as well as respect other religions. The Jain leader said that if all the flowers in the garden were of one variety only, then of what use would they be or what beauty would they have? So, if all of us are Sikhs, or Jains, or Christians, or Hindus or Muslims then, what beauty would we have? It is good that we are unique and beautiful in the garden of God and that we love and appreciate one another with all our goodness and beauty.

Then all of us read the peace prayer of St. Francis of Assisi together. We warmly greeted each other and parted until we could gather once again. We took a group photo showing that we are all united and brothers to one another. We had a small tea celebration and wound up the meeting at around 11.20 am. They all thanked fr. Simon for such a gathering and said that we must have more and more of such gatherings in the future.

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