ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

63 THEBROTHERSWHODON’TKNOW EACHOTHER, BUTWHOMAYLOVE ONEANOTHER On April 7 Muslims will remember the sa- crifice of Abraham who would have been ready to submit to the will of God sacrifi- cing his only son Ishmael if God had not stopped him at the very last moment. It is the Aid el Adha celebration (Feast of sacrifice) and it is the most important Islam solemnity. It follows, two months later, the fasting period of the "Ramadan" and begins the period of the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam. This year, the Islamic feast falls during our Holy Week; in addition, other Islamic anniversaries are concomitant with our Lent, the time of fasting and spiritual and material sacrifice that ends with the great feast of the Resurrection on April 12. These two religious anniversaries, althou- gh in different ways, intend to prepare the faithful for the ultimate purpose of life: the resurrection in the world promised by God. We want to quote Cardinal Arinzo who, in his message to Muslims, says: "We, Chri- stians and Muslims, are seekers of God, engaged in a search that is a sign of hope for every man. We can work together to give more hope to humanity. Therefore, we must accept each other as different, respect each other and love each other, under the guidance of God who gives his mercy to all. We want to present oursel- ves to the world as believers in God and faithful to man, his dignity and his rights". Whilst we send our best wishes to our brothers of the Islamic faith and in parti- cular to the faithful of the nearby mosque, we ask ourselves, and we ask our readers, some interesting and current questions: • What kind of relationship exists between our Parish and the Islamic Cultural Centre? • How do we deal with the cultural back- ground of new immigrants, through which they see and interpret the society that hosts them, assimilated by them to Christian society? • How do we help new immigrants to know the true face of the Christian out- side the clichés of the mass media? • Is there any voluntary activity that can be undertaken together? We invite our readers to give some an- swers to these questions and to the solici- tations that religious recurrences, mentio- ned in the note beside, can raise.