Scarboro Missions magazine, January-February 2005

Developed by Sharon Willan, program assistant for Scarboro Missions’ Lay Mission Office and former curriculum writer in the York Catholic District School Board, Toronto, Canada. This Guide was developed for Catholic educators. However, it can be adapted for other Christian users and adult educators.

If all the religious traditions worked together to combat the brokenness in our world, there would be a tremendous outpouring of goodness and love, compassion and mercy, of forgiveness and reconciliation, and of justice, respect and dignity for all. The result would be universal peace.

Scarboro missioner Fr. Ray O’Toole

Introduction

This study guide may be used in the Grades 7 to 12 classroom. The January-February 2005 edition of Scarboro Missions magazine is an excellent resource for present day understanding of the major faith traditions in our world.

This guide may be used in one unit as an overview or applied as educators present each of the faith traditions.

“The Golden Rule… a path to peace”    html version |  pdf version

  1. Ask students to read the 13 Sacred Texts listed below. If you have a Golden Rule poster, display it in a prominent position. (The Golden Rule poster can be ordered from Broughtons Religious Books and Gifts)
  2. Have students make two columns in their notebook. Label column 1: “Similarities”, and column 2: “Differences”. Make a list of the similarities and differences among the 13 readings.
  3. Ask students to write one Golden Rule encompassing all the concepts. Discuss the rule students have written and create one class Golden Rule.
  4. What are my rights if this rule is practiced?
    1. What are my responsibilities?
    2. Discuss the rights and responsibilities.
    3. How does an understanding of the 13 texts provide a framework for interfaith dialogue?

13 SACRED TEXTS OF THE GOLDEN RULE

Native Spirituality
We are as much alive as we keep the Earth alive. Chief Dan George

Baha’i
Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself. Baha’u’llah, Gleanings

Buddhism
Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. The Buddha, Udana Varga 5:18

Christianity
In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus,Matthew 7:12

Confucianism
One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct…loving-kindness. Do not do to others what you do not want done to you. Confucius, Analects, 15.23

Hinduism
This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517

Islam
Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. The Prophet Muhammad,13th of the 40 Hadiths of Nawawi

Jainism
One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. Mahavira, Sutrakritanga

Judaism
What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Hillel,Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Sikhism
I am a stranger to no one; and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all. Guru Granth Sahib, page 1299

Taoism
Regard your neighbour’s gain as your own gain and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss. Lao Tzu, T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien, 213-218

Unitarianism
We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Unitarian principle

Zoroastrianism
Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself. Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29

A meditation on the Golden Rule

  1. Divide students into five groups and have each group write a brief paragraph about what the world would be like if the Golden Rule was practiced by people of all faith traditions. These paragraphs will become part of the meditation in the section called “Reflection on the Golden Rule”.
  2. Read the following Scripture passages before the prayer begins so that students remember the stories:
    1. Matthew 15:21-28
    2. Matthew 8:10ff
    3. Luke 10:29-37
    4. John 4
  3. Display the Golden Rule poster in a prominent position. If you do not have a poster, display the 13 sacred texts (listed above). Choose 13 students to read the sacred texts. Ask one student to read the class version of the Golden Rule created from the Sacred Texts.(The Golden Rule poster can be ordered from Broughtons Religious Books and Gifts)

Meditation

Sit silently and play quiet instrumental music.

Call to Prayer:

In the presence of the One God who created the cosmos…
All: We stand in awe.

In the presence of the One God who created us to love one another…
All: We stand in wonder.

In the presence of the One God who has given us the resources to live in justice and peace…
All: We stand in need.

Reading: “Jesus and other world religions”    html version |  pdf version

Have six students each read one of the following six paragraphs from this article, leaving about 20 seconds between each reading.

Reader 1: “One of the themes of the Bible is that God is a God of universal salvation – God’s love and God’s covenant extends to all humanity. We find this theme in both the Hebrew Scriptures and in the teaching of Jesus.”

Reader 2: “Jesus was aware of having been sent to the Jews…But on occasion he crossed the boundaries of race, culture, and religion.”

Reader 3: “On several occasions in the New Testament, Jesus affirmed the faith of individuals who were not Jews. He even presented non-Jews as models of faith; for example the Canaanite woman whose daughter he healed (Matthew 15:21-28). Jesus was so amazed by the faith of the Roman centurion that he remarked, ‘Truly I tell you, nowhere in Israel have I found such faith’ (Matthew 8:10).”

Reader 4: “The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) contains a challenging interfaith message. The Samaritans were not Jews. Indeed, there was much animosity between the two groups. The Jews of New Testament times viewed the Samaritans and their religion as inferior.”

Reader 5: “But, as was his custom, Jesus used an anecdote to challenge the conventional wisdom. In the parable, it is the Samaritan – the outsider – who proves faithful, not the two religiously observant individuals who belong to Jesus’ own faith group. The moral of the story is clear: God’s love is universal – it is not restricted to any specific group, race, culture, or religion.”

Reader 6: “When Jesus sat by the Samaritan woman at the well and even spent two days in her village (John 4) he was breaking a taboo – Jews were forbidden to have contact with the despised Samaritans.”

Prayer of Reconciliation:

Before God and the people of God, we confess our brokenness: in the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others and the life of the world.

All: May God forgive us, Christ renew us, and the Spirit enable us to grow in love

We cannot change the past nor live in the future. We live in the present, providing hope and healing. We reach beyond ourselves to share the lives of others and touch a wider world.

Litany of the Sacred Texts:
Play instrumental music in the background. Each Sacred text is prayed slowly. The response to each is:

Let us live this Golden Rule

Reflection on the Golden Rule:
Read the paragraphs that were written by the five groups about what the world would be like if the Golden Rule was practiced by people of all faith traditions. Choose one member from each group to do the group’s reading, leaving about 20 seconds between each.

Closing prayer:

Leader: Creator God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we remember our families and communities. May they not fail you… Nor we fail them.

All:God of Knowledge
You know our needs
You have given us the means and knowledge to create solutions to the challenges we face
We know that you, O God, are a God of love and we have been created to love all people, indeed the whole of the Earth
Each culture and religion has its version of the Golden Rule
We know that if we truly lived this rule there would be universal peace and justice
We also know what we must do
Help us exchange our selfish ways for communal goals
AMEN

The Golden Rule

    1. Click on the “Golden Rule Across the World’s Religions“. This section of Scarboro Missions’ website provides views about the Golden Rule, commentaries, and how the many faith traditions view the Earth and ecology.
    2. Divide the class into four groups and assign one of the following headings from the website to each group:
      1. Interfaith Commentaries on the Golden Rule
      2. Golden Rule Poster in the News
      3. What People are Saying about the Golden Rule Poster
      4. Golden Rule and Ecology

Ask students to summarize the content and concepts from their section. Each group could organize a short presentation for the other groups. Or the groups could form panels. One person from each group would be on each panel. These panels could present concepts on the Golden Rule to other classes.

Guest editorial: “Interfaith dialogue… A golden conversation”    html version |  pdf version
“Toward a Christian understanding of world religions”    html version |  pdf version
“Jesus and other world religions”    html version |  pdf version

  1. Read these three articles and make a list of the questions that interfaith dialogue creates. Use these questions to further class discussion.
  2. Students may wish to browse other interfaith websites.

“The Muslim-Christian conversation”    html version |  pdf version
“Encounter with Islam”    html version |  pdf version

  1. Read these two articles.
  2. The five pillars of Islam are:
    • faith in the Oneness of God: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God”
    • daily prayers
    • concern for and almsgiving to the needy
    • self-purification through fasting
    • pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able
  3. Ask students to read “Constructing Peace Today“, the address by Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, President of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to Muslims at the end of Ramadan (month-long fast).
  4. Ask students to make a list of the ways that both Christians and Muslims have common ground on which to speak.
    1. What five pillars does Fitzgerald outline in this talk?
    2. How are these pillars related to the five pillars of Islam?
    3. How could studying, discussing and living these five pillars strengthen interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians?

“Experiencing God in the land of the Buddha”    html version |  pdf version
“Opening to other faiths and cultures”    html version |  pdf version
“A single encounter”    html version |  pdf version

  1. After reading these articles, ask students to point out one concept from each article that impressed, interested, concerned or touched them. Ask them to explain why.
  2. In “A single encounter”, the author, Susan Keays writes: “I may be the only Christian that some people will ever knowingly encounter. Their entire understanding of Christians and of the God we worship will be based on what I say and how I act…It became clear that there are times when my words might discourage rather than encourage; my actions might disable rather than enable. What I say or do could close doors rather than open them.”
  3. Ask students to sit in groups of four or five and make lists of words/actions that enable or disable communication between people of different faiths.
  4. Journal entry: How do I view people from other faith traditions? What are my responsibilities as a Christian? How do I live the Golden Rule?

Reflection: A meditation on universal peace”

If all the religious traditions worked together to combat the brokenness in our world, there would be a tremendous outpouring of goodness and love, compassion and mercy, of forgiveness and reconciliation, and of justice, respect and dignity for all. The result would be universal peace.”
(Scarboro missioner Fr. Raymond O’Toole)

Call to Prayer:

In the presence of the One God who created Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Lao Tzu and many others to teach us how to love…
We stand in thanksgiving

In the presence of the One God who desires justice, peace, goodness, love, compassion and mercy…
We stand in need

Litany of Remembrance:

Response: Let us follow in your footsteps

By remembering we can help ourselves and others to heal our broken world, let us remember the people who have gone before us to pave a path for peace and justice:

We remember Martin Luther King who worked to abolish prejudice against all peoples…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Harriet Tubman, born into slavery, and who created the underground railway to save her people…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Mahatma Gandhi who worked to improve conditions in India…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Mother Teresa who opened hospitals for the dying and hospices for the poor…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Jean Vanier whose L’Arche communities are a haven of love, possibility and hope for people with disabilities…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Archbishop Oscar Romero, martyred for his stand for justice in El Salvador…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and lay missioner Jean Donovan who died in their attempts to help the poor in El Salvador…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember all soldiers killed in the many wars on this Earth…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember nurses worldwide who nursed on battlefields…
Let us follow in your footsteps

We remember all those who have begun organizations to strive for peace…
Let us follow in your footsteps

Compassionate God, you have created so many people from all cultures, races and religions, who worship you and who by their lives teach us how to follow you. May we learn compassion and mercy, the ways of justice and wisdom, so that we, too, may open doors to others and meet their needs.

Reading:

Excerpts from “Constructing Peace Today“, the address by Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, President of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to Muslims at the end of Ramadan (month-long fast).

“Truth is the first pillar…In human relations truth implies sincerity, essential to mutual confidence and fruitful dialogue leading to peace. Truth moreover brings each individual to acknowledge his or her own rights, but also to recognize his or her own duties towards others.

Yet peace cannot exist without justice, respect for the dignity and rights of each human person. It is the lack of justice, in individual, social and international relations, that causes so much unrest in our world today, and brings about violence.

Justice must nevertheless be tempered by love. This implies the ability to recognize that we all belong to one human family, and so to see our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters. It gives the capacity to share in both sorrows and joys. It makes people feel the needs of others as if they were one’s own, and this empathy leads them to share their own gifts with others, not only material goods but also the values of mind and spirit. Love also makes allowances for weakness, and so includes the ability to forgive. This forgiveness is essential to the restoration of peace when conflict has broken out, for it opens up the possibility of beginning again, on a new basis, in a restored relationship.

All this supposes freedom, an essential characteristic of the human person. For freedom allows people to act according to reason and to assume responsibility for their own actions. Indeed each of us is responsible before God for our contribution to society.

To these four pillars I would be inclined to add a fifth, namely prayer. For we know that, as human beings, we are weak. We find it hard to live up to these ideals. We need God’s help, and this we have to implore humbly…”

Prayers of concern and gratitude:

Creator God, we ask forgiveness for the ways we disable dialogue rather than enable and enhance it with others…
Let us offer reconciliation to all people

God of Justice, we ask forgiveness for the ways our world abuses the gifts of your creation and especially for the ways we treat each other…
Let us learn the ways of justice

God of Peace, thank you for the many ways people work for peace…
Let us follow them

God of Wisdom, thank you for the gift of wisdom that we see in the faith traditions of the world…
Let us learn wisdom in all its forms from each other

Creator God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we remember our families and communities. May they not fail you, nor we fail them.

Closing Prayer:

God of Justice and Peace
You know our needs
You have given us the means and knowledge to create solutions to the challenges we face
Together we can alleviate poverty, live in peace, and learn to be environmentally aware
You, O God, have provided ways for us to live with one another
We know we must learn to accept differences, live with the diversity of all our cultures, races, and religions
We see so many written forms of the Golden Rule
Now let us live it
Help us exchange our selfish ways for communal goals
AMEN