The overlap of Ash Wednesday and Ramadan this year reminds us of how much the two faiths have in common and how each is reflected in the spirit of Jesuit Social Services, notes Andy Hamilton SJ – both embodying friendship, gratitude and courage in sharing our life with those most disadvantaged.
This year the dates of Ash Wednesday and Ramadan coincide. The coming together of the Islamic and the Christian observances reminds us that among out staff and the people with whom we work are Christians, Muslims and people of other religions and none. The overlap of Ramadan and Lent introduced by Ash Wednesday reminds us of how much the two faiths have in common and how each is echoed in our spirit at Jesuit Social Services.
Both Lent and Ramadan and the dates assigned to them recall a founder who claimed a special and authoritative relationship to God, and the central event in their lives that vindicated this claim. Lent focuses on Jesus’ death and rising from the dead. Ramadan recalls the communication of the Quran to Muhammad in Mecca in 610.
Ramadan and Lent also have a central place in their respective faiths. For Muslims, the Ramadan Fast is one of the five pillars of Islam, together with the profession of faith in Allah the one God, daily prayer, almsgiving and pilgrimage to Mecca. For Christians, the following of Christ in his passage through death to life is at the core of their faith.
At the heart both of Lent and Ramadan is a substantial fast. In Muslim practice the fast begins at dawn and end at nightfall, excludes both eating and drinking, and prescribes prayer at five times during the day and the reading of the Quran. In early Christian practice the fasting in Lent was equally onerous. It involved total fasting from all food and drink other than water from morning, while allowing a small vegan meal in the evening.
In Muslim and Christian practice, the Ramadan fast has many desired effects: turning from sin, growth in self-control, time for extended prayer, reflection, and growing in faith. It also strengthened the identity of the Muslim community through the shared discipline of fasting, their prayer together during the day, the ideally communal meal at the end of the day, and in the celebration of Eid at the end of Ramadan. Catholics pray to God that ‘our self-denial should give you thanks, humble our sinful pride, contribute to the feeding of the poor, and so help us to imitate you in our kindness’.
An earlier Christian celebration of Lent had the same rhythm. The bareness of covered statues, absence of flowers and the widespread custom of giving up something – commonly sweets or cigarettes – brought home its seriousness, introspection, and identification with Jesus in his path to death, accentuated in the final week of Lent. It concluded with the bright lights of Easter.
Finally, in a way that speaks to all of us at Jesuit Social Services, Ramadan and Lent emphasise generosity to people in poverty or disadvantaged. It is one of the five pillars of Islam and takes the form of donation to Muslim charities that purified the wealth of the giver. Lent was also a time also for Christians to follow Jesus in his concern for those excluded from the comfort of life. Many, on Palm Sunday, walk for refugees.
At a time when public life emphasises the divisions between groups and the priority of competition over cooperation, of greed over generosity, individual choice over the common good, and seeing the worst in other groups and individuals, Ramadan and Lent embody friendship, gratitude and courage in sharing our life with the most disadvantaged. Those attitudes are radical in challenging attitudes often taken for granted in Australia. But they lie at the heart of each and of us all at Jesuit Social Services whatever our faith. Not for nothing does Ramadan mean scorching heat, nor Jesus say that he came to cast fire on the earth.
