Reflections of Tantur
Father John Jenkins, C.S.C.
We begin our meeting of the International Advisory Board for the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, located on the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and just a few miles from each city, on the Feast of Pentecost.
There can be no more appropriate feast for the start of our meeting on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Tantur (1972-2007).
Ecumenism, the restoration of unity among all Christians, was one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council, and it was no doubt the prompting of the Holy Spirit which led Pope Paul VI, soon after the conclusion of the Council, to ask Father Hesburgh and Notre Dame to establish an institute in the Holy Land devoted to ecumenism. We too rely on the Spirit as we continue this work at Tantur.
Tantur—which means “little hilltop” in Arabic—is on a rise surrounded by olive trees, away from the noise of urban life. The beautiful facility, built into the hillside, was designed by Frank Montana of the Notre Dame School of Architecture. The institute brings together scholars, teachers, religious, and lay men and women from various Christian traditions for study, prayer, dialogue, and fellowship. In this land where Jesus walked, Tantur brings Christians together so that “they may be one,” as Jesus and the Father are one (John 17:22).
Yesterday, Father Jim McDonald and I were summoned early by the chant from a nearby mosque with this refrain: “Prayer is better than sleep.”
We awoke and spent the day touring the city, beginning with a visit to the Mount of Olives, which overlooks Jerusalem. As we stood on the mount, behind us was the desert where, Matthew’s Gospel tell us, the Spirit led Jesus for forty days of fasting and temptation.
In the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, Jesus prayed before his death. In front of us was Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. One cannot but enter prayerfully into the central Christian mysteries in this place.
As one overlooks Jerusalem, one also cannot but recognize the importance of the city to all three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Islam, as well as Christianity. Jerusalem is, of course, the city of David and so central to the Jewish faith. And it contains the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, so important for Islam.
As one walks through the streets of Jerusalem, one is struck by how it contains holy sites so central to each of these religious traditions. This place is just as religiously moving to Jews and Muslims as it was to me as a Christian.
But, as one tours the city, one is also reminded how disputes over this land among adherents of these religious traditions have led to so much conflict, cruelty, and bloodshed in the past and today.
It is the history of conflict among these three Abrahamic faiths that has led Tantur to strive also to provide a place where these three faiths can engage in dialogue and strive for mutual understanding.
The first reading for Mass today (Acts of the Apostles 2:11) tells how, through the gift of the Spirit, people who spoke many different languages were, to their amazement, able to understand one another. In the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), God, because of the pride of human beings, caused different peoples to speak different languages so that they could not understand one another.
The gift of the Spirit, it seems, is not to restore the unity of a single language spoken by all; rather, while there remains a rich diversity of languages, each person is given the gift to understand the other. Through the gift of the Spirit guiding the work of those at Tantur and many other places, we pray that those speaking different languages may understand one another.
Father John Jenkins, C.S.C.
Tantur Ecumenical Institute
Feast of Pentecost
27 May 2007
