Interfaith Conversation with Sister Sheral Marshall
Sheral Marshall was born in Berkeley and reared in Sacramento; she is the middle of three girls and attended Catholic schools until university. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Spanish and a lifetime teaching credential from the California State University at Sacramento and a Master’s degree in Theology from the University of San Francisco. She has been a Franciscan Sister for 44 years, serving as a junior high and high school teacher, retreat leader, and vocation director, helping young adults decide how best they can use their talents to serve God, the Church community and the world. More recently, she has worked in three parishes as coordinating the liturgy (Mass), teaching adults about their faith and helping them to discuss social justice issues, such as human trafficking and racism, and to understand various religious traditions such as Islam and Buddhism.
We invited Sister Sheral Marshall to give our community a talk about the Franciscan point of view on interfaith dialogue. She started her talk with a prayer, where each of us joined by repeating after her.
She then gave us a historical background on the crusades, emphasizing that saracens were seen by crusaders as infidels who had to be destroyed. She also mentioned about the church’s influence on the crusades and how it affected people to join the battle. The church promised people plenary indulgence in return for joining the crusades. This would guarantee all of one’s sins to be forgiven and a place in paradise.
She continued with introducing us St. Francis of Assisi, who was an influential deacon at the time. He was unique during his time in that he was against the crusades, because he preferred inviting people to God’s way instead of killing them. Following his beliefs, he travelled to the Middle East and advised the crusaders to stop fighting. He followed this with a very rare act during those times. He requested to a have meeting with the leader of the Muslims, Sultan Malik al-Kamil. The Sultan accepted his request, and a dialogue between a Christian and a Muslim started. St. Francis stayed at the Sultan’s palace for 25 days, and during this period, they had a chance to share what they believe in and find a lot of common points. Although the exact content of their conversations is not known, it is certain that their meeting caused big changes in both individual’s lives. They both learned to love each other as brothers, as creatures of one God. We can witness the positive impact of this meeting in St. Francis’ later prayers. He wrote “Praises of God” which mentioned 33 beautiful names of God, which he learned from “99 names of Allah” in Islam.
St. Francis’ attempts for peace and unity of all people started to give positive outcomes in 1965. The same Catholic Church who supported the “bloody crusades” announced a declaration on the relation of the church to non-christian religion. In the declaration, it said “The church regards with esteem the Muslims who adore god. We cannot invoke God, Father of all, if we refuse to conduct ourselves fraternally to any person created in the image of God. One is the community of all people, One their origin, One also their final goal. What unites us is so much greater than what divides us.”
Sister Sheral Marshall concluded her talk by dragging our attention to our commonalities as human beings and as creatures of God. She added that we should commit ourselves to engage in dialogue with sincerity and patience, without considering what separates us as an insurmountable wall. On the contrary, recognizing that facing our differences can become an occasion for greater understanding. The meeting of St. Francis and Sultan Malik al-Kamil is a great example to lead us to a world of peace.