Nun's Biography Offers Look at Christian-Muslim Relations
ROME, MAY 4, 2007 (zenit.org).- A new book about the life of Sister Magdeleine of Jesus offers a new look at the relationship between Christians and Muslims.
Presented at Rome's Grand Mosque on April 21, the book, "Magdeleine di Gesu e le Piccole Sorelle nel mondo dell'Islam" (Magdeleine of Jesus and The Little Sisters of the World of Islam), is available in Italian and French.
Sister Magdeleine Hutin (1898-1989) founded the order of the Little Sisters of Jesus in 1939 in the Saharan outpost of Touggourt, Algeria, after feeling a call to follow Charles de Foucauld to northern Africa.
The Little Sisters of Jesus, devoted to the contemplative life while sharing the poverty and social conditions of manual laborers in slums and shantytowns around the world, now number around 1,400 nuns on five continents.
Gabriele Tecchiato, a Muslim and librarian of the Islamic Center in Rome, said the book is a biography of a virtuous person "worthy of being commemorated and admired."
The book's author, Francesca De Lellis, said that Sister Magdeleine's "example of dialogue between Christians and Muslims had a prophetic value that changed the Catholic Church and influenced the Second Vatican Council."
She "overturned the idea that a woman could not live alone in an Islamic culture with a clearly Christian identity," said De Lellis.
Tecchiato commented that "faith is seen in its highest and purest form in living together with others, in giving without the guarantee of receiving anything in return," which is the way Sister Magdeleine lived.
He affirmed: Sister Magdeleine is "an example of living together and of service for all who believe in the one God. [Her witness] should continue today as a sign in the living memory of Muslims."
Code: ZE07050817
Date: 2007-05-08