Yesterday at the Council of Christians and Jews I heard the most touching and inspiring story of a mother whose son was killed eleven years ago when a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Tel Aviv. Yoni  Yesner  was a remarkable young man, a youth leader in the Jewish community in Glasgow, a bright, clever student who achieved some of the best results in Scotland in  his final exams in secondary school, a deeply religious person with a sense of social responsibility who planned to become a doctor.  He had gone to Israel for the summer and was soon to return home when his life was taken from him. 

Yoni made national news not only because he is the only British person to have been killed by a suicide bomber in Israel but because his kidney was given to a young 7 year old Palestinian girl.  Yoni's mother told of her shock and confusion at this - to give her son's kidney to someone associated with his murder?  Very movingly she told of how she was able to transform her heartbreak into a blessing by realising that Yoni in his death was able to give life to this young girl and that she could continue to do the work left undone by his death.  This she did by setting up the  Yoni Jesner   Foundation.  What was particularly touching was a short clip from a documentary in which she visits the home of the young girl and two mothers embracing one another with tears. Here were two women from nations at war with one another, Jew and Muslim, forever united in grief and thanksgiving, recognising one another's common pain and feeling solidarity with one another in that pain. 

This reminded me of another embrace - that between Phyllis Rodrigues and Aisha el-Wafi. One woman's son was killed at 9/11 and the other one's son arrested for being part of the attack. He has never been  brought to trial and his mother does not know whether he is alive or dead - or where he is being kept.  Two mothers united in grief, overcoming initial suspicions of one another with a message of hope and a plea for interreligious understanding.  Their appearance at a TED women's conference is worth a look.

And a third embrace in the news this week is that of the Pope, the Rabbi and the Imam at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  Rabbi Skorka, rector of the Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires and Imam Omar Abboud, the Director of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue in Buenos Aires accompanied the Pope on his visit to Jordan, Palestine and Israel.  There were many iconic moments during that visit which  I 'm sure I'll get back to in the future, but  a lasting one for me will be of three friends from different religious traditions hugging one another in that  land characterised more by its religious conflict than its acceptance of one another.   Pope Francis is showing us, i think, how important friendship is, what a strong witness it can be to others and who knows what seeds it might sow for peace in that troubled land.

This weekend Pope Francis travels to Israel/Palestine. It's a pilgrimage of peace, commemorating the visit of Pope Paul VI to the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras fifty years ago.  That meeting had great significance - the first between the leaders of the Western and Eastern Catholic Churches  since they had split in the 11th century over theological differences and papal authority. It was an initial gesture of friendship and  brought to an end the mutual excommunications issued by Pope and Patriarch in 1054. Hopefully this relationship  will be deepened and  strengthened this weekend when the Pope meets the present Patriarch  of Constantinople, Archbishop Bartholomew.

The Patriarch has already arrived in Jerusalem and will meet the Pope on four occasions.  They already know one another.  Patriarch Bartholomew was the first Patriarch to attend a Papal inauguration since the schism of 1054.  He was able to do so because Pope Francis called himself the Bishop of Rome when he first appeared on the balcony of St  Peter's after his election, rather than the universal Pontiff - one of the points of conflict between the two Churches.   This simple gesture had the touch of genius. It did away with centuries of animosity and made possible an invitation to the Pope to meet the Patriarch in Jerusalem.  Another significant moment will be when they pray together in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which has been the cause of so much feuding among Christian denominations that none of them could be entrusted with the key which has been for centuries in the safekeeping of a Muslim family. 

The Pope's concern in this visit is with Christians, particularly those suffering because of the conflict in the area. His itinerary includes a visit to Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the State of Palestine and though he will also meet with Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, the recognition of the State of Palestine is sure to cause some criticism. Already there have been protests and threats against Christians by Israeli extremists as well as the desecration of several holy sites.  It will not be possible to transcend the political situation in Israel/Palestine.  But the Pope intends to witness to peace and friendship because included in his entourage will be his good friend Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Imam Omar Aboud, both from Buenos Aires.  I'm sure the Pope will talk about dialogue, reconciliation, peace and friendship but like his gesture on the balcony of St Peter's, traveling with a Jewish and Muslim friend will speak louder than words.

It's a coincidence that the Jesuit  celebrated in the British Province calendar this month is Cardinal Bea.  Augustin Bea was a biblical scholar of international repute who was very influential before, during and after the Second Vatican Council.  As head of the Secretariat for Christian Unity he  was the first to suggest that non-Catholic observers should be invited to the  Council. He was given the task of drawing up a statement on the Church's relationship to the Jews, a statement which was widened to become the Decree, Nostra Aetate, setting out the relationship of the Catholic Church with non-christain religions.  He did not have an easy ride in doing this but the document itself marks a starting point for many christians in the journey of interreligious dialogue. Rabbi David Rosen has often remarked that, in his opinion, nothing has so changed a relationship at any time in history as Nostra Aetate has done in changing the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.  Much of this is due to the tenacity of Cardinal Bea.

Please God the pilgrimage this weekend to that land which is held sacred by all the Abrahamic faiths will be another significant moment in that interfaith journey.

A new ruling has come out from Europe - individuals can ask that irrelevant or outdated material about them can be removed from the web.  The internet means that so much of our lives is lived in public and once some information gets out there it's been impossible to do anything about it, even if people spew hatred of others all over the globe. 

But no-one I think would want to be forgotten, to dissolve into total anonymity once their life is over.  I'm very aware of this today.  May 13th has several anniversaries. It is the day on which my father died - twenty years ago but the day is still fresh in my memory and he still lives in my heart. The older I get the more I am aware of my family ancestors and how I belong to a great family tradition that goes back to the first moment of creation. I don't know these ancestors but they live in me and each day I remember and honour them in my morning prayer.  It reminds me of how we are all interconnected and how not one of us is a disconnected individual but influenced by our genes and family history, part of the great human family and related to all creation for we all came from that first moment of life which we call the big bang.

The same is true for spiritual ancestors. They too have influenced us.  Today is also the anniversary of the death of Bede Griffiths, a benedictine monk whor lived in an  ashram in southern India, committed to establishing a dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. He dressed as a Hindu holy man, adopted Indian customs, read the Hindu scriptures and recognised wisdom in philosophies other than his own. He died on the same day as my father so I feel a certain connection with him. I never met him but did visit his grave in his ashram, 'Shantivanam' and wondered if they encountered one another in the hereafter whatever that might be.  I have read his books and been influenced by his writings. My abiding memory of a CD of a talk he gave is of him saying ' there is such wisdom in that'.  I loved this ability to see the truth, the wisdom, the insights in other faiths and philosophies.  What a wonderful way to look at the world and not to judge one against the other. 

Another spiritual ancestor is Marie Rose Julie Billiart, the foundress of my community, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.  Today the universal Catholic Church remembers her but especially the sisters of my congregation and other congregations that she influenced. Taking part in the conference in Namur last week were sisters from two congregatons, the Sisters of Our Lady of Amersfoot and Notre Dame Coesfeld who also claim Julie as their foundress.  We think of them as our cousins but it was obvious how influenced we all were with the spirit of Julie.  In spite of disability, illness and hardship in the aftermath of the French Revolution she spoke constantly of the goodness of God and tried to show this in practical ways to poor women and children left without education and the means of earning an income in the social disruption of the time.  She was a poor woman, brought up in a very beautiful part of rural France, in a small village called Picardy which we visited last week. From that small beginning her spirit and dedication to education has spread throughout the world and her influence is very much alive through the work of her sisters.

So today is a day for thinking about family and spiritual ancestors, for giving thanks for them and keeping alive their memory.  In no sense do we want them to be forgotten. Nor can they be for they live in us whether we realise it or not.

I have just spent a week in Namur, a town which doesn't mean much to the world at large but very dear to Sisters of Notre Dame.  This is the town which gives my congregation its name, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and from which we went out to educate poor women and children throughout the world.

I was at an international symposium of sisters involved in justice and peace issues.  From Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe it was inspiring to hear of the work of the sisters in educating for justice, working for women's rights, having concern for land grabbing, fracking, immigration, poverty etc etc. It made me very proud to be their sister and to be associated with their work. All over the world we have the same concerns about human trafficking, immigration, reconciliation, dialogue, ecology and it was good to feel the support that comes from a common mission.  Over and over I come up against wonderful instances of religious people doing such good things in spite of the bad press religion for the most part gets (and I do recognise much of this is deserved but if only the opposite were also known).

My contribution was to speak about Interfaith Issues which pleased me greatly.  So often interfaith is seen as an extra, a tiger without teeth as I've heard it described, but it is an integral part of justice and certainly of peace.  All over the world religion is implicated in violence.  Memories of past conflicts spoil present relations, a sense of superiority of one religion being better than another, of "my" religion having the complete truth which is for everyone and not just for me, of misjudging the motives and practices of others can all contribute to religious conflict which, like all other conflicts, has to end in dialogue.  So why not begin with dialogue? In dialogue we are asked to build bridges.  This is the wish of Pope Francis who shortly after his election told the world “My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced.”  (March 22nd 2013)

And there are bridges being built all over the world. The work of the World Council of Religions for Peace has made wonderful contributions through national interfaith committees. The Tannenbaum Centre for Reconciliation in the States highlights individuals who are making significant contributions to peace such as Pastor James Wuye and Imam Ashafa from the Kaduna Interfaith Mediation Centre in Nigeria.  Smaller contributions such as my own are part of a world wide movement for peace.  But there is much work to be done.  While here in Namur we heard of the abduction of the Nigerian young women by Boko Haram, of bombs in Abuja, Mombasa, Nairobi.  This is the background against which our African sisters work - so different from mine though there are sometimes tensions under the surface in Britain even if they don't actually explode into violence. However, the support and  love of my African sisters encouraged me to see that even my small efforts are a contribution to peace and a support to them working as they are in such different situations.  They are certainly an inspiration to me and give me the motivation to see my work within a global context and as part of a world wide community working for peace and reconciliation.