“We don’t come to pray together, but we come together to pray”*

A unique event attracted Christian and Muslim women to honour Our Lady and pray for peace in June when around forty women met to pray for peace at St. Mary’s Chapel, the medieval pilgrim shrine at the bottom of Reid Park Road.

What was remarkable about the gathering was that it was made up of Christian and Muslim women from all over the north east, responding to an invitation from the Interreligious Relations Commission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. The diversity was striking, including as it did a large group of Christian and Muslim women from Stockton, Muslims from South Shields and Fenham, Missionaries of Charity (the order founded by Mother Theresa) from Elswick, a Christian group from Gateshead, a supporter from Blyth, parishioners from the Holy Name, Allison Fenton from Christchurch and the three of us from St. George’s. Our ages ranged from teenage to over ninety.

The service took the form of interleaved Muslim and Christian prayers, songs and hymns and readings about Mary from the Qu’ran and the New Testament and concluded with the Peace.
None of us were quite sure what to expect, but we were struck forcibly by the occasion itself. As Joan said, ‘What was amazing was that it actually happened.’ Indeed, we learned that it was the product of a year’s planning between representatives of each of the two faiths. In addition, we were all more than a little taken aback by the similarities which emerged, in the way in which women of the Catholic church use the Rosary and the Muslims the Tasbe (beads used as an aid to prayer). The repetition of simple phrases in both, and their accessibility to women at all times was remarkable. There then followed readings about Mary from St. Luke (1.26-38) and The Surah (19,19-22) and Al Imran (vv 45-8) Once again, the parallels were significant as both prayers and readings opened our eyes to important areas of similarity which we had not thought existed and created a meaningful context for the prayers for peace which followed.

What really impressed us was the fact that, despite its obvious organisation, this was not a highly stage-managed, slick service—there were moments of hesitation—but a genuinely respectful, even tentative, coming together of women to share what was similar in their faiths, without in any way ignoring their differences, nor submerging their individual identities.

We should like to thank the Interreligious Relations Commission and in particular Veronica Whitty, Anne Shaw,Anne Seymour and Christine Wilkins for inviting us and the members of the congregation of the Holy Name who offered us lunch and fellowship after the event.

Diana Dowson, Joan Grenfell, Hazel Jones-Lee

*Catholic Bishops’ Conference