Pray Tell
Campus interfaith leaders gather to "set the table for everybody"
From the Winter 2024 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine
“So, two priests, a monk, a shaykha, a reverend, a professor and a rabbi all get lost trying to find a conference room in the old global headquarters of General Electric …” This truth sounds close to the opener for a stand-up comedy routine.
Eventually, on a brilliant fall day, we assembled. Our spiritual roundtable had many knights.
Sitting with a Catholic studies professor (that’s me!) were some members of the SHU interfaith team. Circling the table were Venerable Shim Bo (Buddhist chaplain), Shaykha Eman Beshtawii (Muslim chaplain), Reverend Sara Smith (Protestant chaplain), Father John Ograh (University Catholic chaplain), Acharya Venkata Govardhanam (Hindu chaplain), Aliza Leander (a student on the Peer Ministry Team) and Rabbi Josh Ratner (Jewish chaplain).
Why work so hard to put together an event like this? “Spiritual awareness is part and parcel of the mission of the University,” Rabbi Josh said. And, as Pope Francis teaches time and again, the road to spiritual awareness begins in an encounter.
Our conversation included much laughter and hope. These spiritual leaders highlighted students’ deep need for silence and for accompaniment on their spiritual journeys. The chaplains agreed on their common witness to the importance of our shared humanity that goes beyond words. From religions whose teachings disagree about the ultimate nature of reality, the status of God and the proper destiny of humankind, the conversation nevertheless demonstrated the delights of friendship, conversation and learning. That we managed to find the room for our interfaith roundtable was not the only sign of divine intervention that day. The first was simply that such a diverse group could all be together in the same place at the same time: Coordinating physical copresence is hard and holy work.
A glorious accident of scheduling meant that our interfaith roundtable occurred right after Sacred Heart University’s annual Mass of the Holy Spirit. (A brief recap: The community came together to pray that our academic year might be inspired by the Holy Spirit; that God would guide our studies and projects and arguments and triumphs and friendships toward wisdom, truth, goodness and beauty. Many gathered in the Chapel, offering our labors this academic year as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving back to God, and we all heard a reflection on how the Catholic intellectual tradition offers the shared roots for our community and our ongoing conversations.)
The presence of our interfaith chaplains occasioned one of the most powerful moments of the Mass of the Holy Spirit: a collective embrace. “That we can even hug each other in the sanctuary is remarkable to me,” Venerable Shim Bo observed, “and I think that’s a very powerful witness.” The chaplains demonstrated, by their holy commitment to be who they are, a promise for open-hearted welcome through our distinct religious and nonreligious identities. As Acharya Venkata put it, “You can pray your God here.” For me, God happens to be the one revealed in sacramental breaking of bread. But SHU’s bold gamble remains that someone does not need to become a Catholic Christian to find a home at Sacred Heart. Each of us is challenged to be a human willing to take questions of spirit seriously, regardless of our diverse and complex religious and nonreligious affiliations.
What I love about this environment is the eagerness to learn.
The interfaith chaplains help students recognize the many beautifully different ways we work to be human together on our campus. “What I love about this environment is the eagerness to learn,” said Reverend Sara. The interfaith team, according to Father John, models that “it is not a bad thing to express faith on campus.” In fact, Acharya Venkata pointed to the importance of representation for students who come from non-Catholic backgrounds and from around the world. “To our Indian students,” he said, “when they see us, they become very happy. You can pray here; you can seek the blessings.” In fact, said Shaykha Eman, “I like to see that this is what SHU is doing—being part of the Catholic Church but also bringing in a Muslim chaplain. I pray to God that the intention and work that we do here can fix this world because it gives me a sense of hope and unity.”
The interfaith team teaches everyone on campus how to drink deeply from our own wells while sharing the riches we find in our traditions. As Reverend Sara said, “You have to be deep in your faith.” Rabbi Josh stated: “I think we have a sacred opportunity here to embody what a positive notion of pluralism looks like. And in that sense, it’s not assimilating what we believe. It’s not watering down our particular traditions. It’s celebrating them for the reasons they call to us individually and, at the same time, seeing them as part of the symphony of religious practices we try to raise up on this campus and in society at large.
“It’s the dance between the universal and the particular,” he added.
Our conversation sang with symphonic truths, the sort of talking together that makes a seminar begin to feel like a dance party. Themes bubbled to the surface because of the way the chaplains gave each other space to speak, actively listened and then exchanged and built ideas. Two of those themes returned again and again: representation as a spiritual practice and interfaith doing as a response to the humanity we share.
Spiritual leadership shows wisdom in action. “Each one of us on this interfaith team has a spiritual practice,” Venerable Shim Bo explained. “And what people see is the fruit of that in our expression of who we are, and that’s called wisdom, that we can be completely who we are, not stuck in our individual traditions.”
Sometimes it feels easier to let big questions of faith and doubt slip into irrelevance. Commitment to one’s own spiritual practices, however, invites the freedom to encounter others. “I know it’s so hard for these students who are facing all these questions in their mind, doubting why this faith or that faith,” said Shaykha Eman.
Religion is a tricky topic of conversation, especially because there can be so much new to learn. At Sacred Heart, adult encounters with faith are a pillar of the Pioneer journey and enhance the student experience. As Father John explained, “I look at it as a bidirectional effect. I’m a Catholic chaplain, but I am also an interfaith chaplain.” Our community is not limited by our own spiritual identities or personal beliefs. Instead, wisdom grows through the different people we meet along the journey.
The interfaith team responds less with a technical argument than with an invitation to see the religious diversity of the world brought to our campus. Acharya Venkata told a story about being recognized at a nearby Hindu temple. He explained that the chaplains are “alongside the teachers” at the University as a support and as a guide. Chaplains become those who also “teach us how to behave and the knowledge about wisdom. When the students see me [at the Hindu temple], they say ‘Swami!’ They call me swami; it means respected. ‘I saw you in SHU.’”
It goes both ways, and it’s not always easy. Our interfaith chaplains break stereotypes and inspire new understanding of spiritual possibilities simply by representing their traditions and themselves. “All I have to do is walk around this campus with my collar on, and I change someone’s view of the world,” Reverend Sara said. “It takes some courage! Until my sister [Shaykha Eman] got here, I was breaking ground as the first woman, first Protestant and first lesbian.” That courage to become present means we all can also share the joy of traditional celebrations, whether inviting new friends to experience a Passover seder or learning the meaning behind the colors of religious dress. Openness to celebrating our differences can teach us to recognize how God might show up when we give ourselves permission to be who we are and who we are called to become. As Shaykha Eman explained, “We call them sifat, the qualities of God, like mercy, compassion, love, being just, being forgiving, all these qualities of God. It’s inside us.”
One other angle of the conversation left me thinking. As a scholar, I fumble to bring words to interpret human experiences of the divine. But the interfaith chaplains have a distinct but equally valuable approach that they began to explore. Interfaith encounters are first and foremost human. Father John observed, “If we define religion by dragging humanity into the concept, it does everybody good. Humanity. It’s something that has no color, that has no denomination.”
The work of the interfaith chaplains, then, is human work. “It’s about hospitality. It’s about being a welcoming presence,” Venerable Shim Bo observed. “In our group here, we have God (singular), gods and”— pointing to himself—“not necessarily a god. Right? And I think there can be a slippery slope, as Father John was saying, about getting into the particular words and debating.” Acharya Venkata brought up a similar idea from his Vedic studies: “In front of God, everyone is equal.”
The chaplains told many stories about their support for each other— especially in a world where crossing religious borders can feel impossible— and their work of ministering in times of death, crisis, loss and confusion. At one level, a university and a spiritual leader can teach about the importance of a fundamental human dignity shared by so many religious traditions. That human foundation even appears in the text of Nostra aetate from the Second Vatican Council, a document that every undergraduate at SHU reads and discusses as part of the Human Journey Seminars: Great Books in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. But on another level, Reverend Sara noted, “You weren’t just teaching. In my tradition, we call that being pastoral. You were taking care of people; you were caring for their spirits and their hearts that were broken.” Added Venerable Shim Bo: “We’re all chaplains for human beings.”
That’s fitting for Sacred Heart University because the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a human heart that shows God’s love. Our conversation revealed to me how God’s heart is always surprisingly big enough to welcome questions and doubts and differences. But my time with the chaplains around that table also showed how love promises hope. Those present ended by sharing a few final words about what we saw around the table. I want to end by sharing them here, too:
“How do we set the table for everybody?”
“I see faces and people and colors.”
“I see brotherhood and sisterhood.”
“I see hospitality and commitment to things we love. And I see hope.”
“I see everything as hope here.”
“Be human.”
“I see such hope and such beauty and things I would not otherwise recognize them in.”
“I see integrity.”
“I see deep wisdom, and I see love.”
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