Reflections

History

From history perspective.

These days we have had classes with Mark David Walsh an associate of Sion´s Sisters. Our topic is Christian-Jewish relations. In our first class we talked about the various expressions of the golden rule in the different religions; all are connected to love and respect of others. Specifically, in Christianity, Mt. 7:12 says: in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. In Judaism‘s rule from Hillel, the Talmud says: what is hateful to you do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary.

As Christians, we acknowlege our historical heritage from the Judaism, and especially that, Jesus who, for us, is the Christ (the Messiah) and our Saviour, was born, lived and died as a Jew, observing Jewish Tradition, as is written in Luke 4:16-20: when he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, as he was his custom, and he stood up to read.

In our history we have often been in conflict with other religions because we always wanted to convert others to what we believed. After centuries of such struggles, the Church, through the Second Vatican Council, began changing its attitudes towards other religions, and opened a door for reconciliation and dialogue, especially with Judaism, and so began building bridges towards healing, trust and respect, believing that our God is One. As a Sisters of Sion, we are challenged to continue working as a women of dialogue and to contribute to reparing our broken world . As we know we cannot change the past but we can change the future.
”If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Written by Alejandra