News

Ten days in the Holy Land

On Wednesday, April 3th, the novitiate community met a group of twelve people from Australia in Hadassah hospital. This group of four Christians, four Muslims and four Jews came to Jerusalem for ten days on a pilgrimage. They are all part of an association called JCMA (Jewish, Christian, Muslim Association of Australia) whose objective is to promote the prevention of emotional and physical abuse arising from religious intolerance and cultural discrimination.

“The JCMA aims to create and provide a forum for interfaith dialogue and shared experience through meetings and discussions in a modern Australian and international context. Meeting and learning from Jews, Christians and Muslims together, leads to a fuller understanding of other faiths and perhaps in turn of our own. By fostering relationships between people of different faiths, JCMA aims to reduce racism, intolerance, bigotry and violence and the associated emotional harm.” (source:JCMA)

For ten days they have visited Jewish, Christian and Muslim places in the Holy Land, sharing between their faith and traditions amongst themselves. This week they are going to celebrate together Friday in a Muslim way, Saturday in a Jewish rhythm and Sunday in a Christian way.
The role of the novitiate community in this encounter was to take the group to Ein Karem and to show them the Christian Holy places. We brought them to our convent too. They were really amazed at how beautiful and peaceful our place was.

It was a great experience for us, the novitiate community to meet them. We wish them a blessed time here in Jerusalem.

Iulia NDS
Novitiate, Ein Karem