Berikut saya sampaikan hasil pertemuan tingkat dunia yang saat ini sedang diselenggarakankan oleh Paus Benedict XVI di Roma dengan kalangan muslim international. Kelompok muslim dari Indonesia diwakili oleh Ketua Umum PP Muhammadiyah Din Syamsudin. Semoga semangat cinta kasih dan memelihara harmoni kehidupan juga bisa diterapkan dan dipelihara di Indonesia.
The Catholic-Muslim Forum was formed by the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue and a delegation of the 138 Muslim signatories of
the open letter called A Common Word, in the light of the same document
and the response of His Holiness Benedict XVI through his Secretary of
State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Its first Seminar was held in Rome from
4-6 November 2008. Twenty-four participants and five advisors from each
religion took part in the meeting. The theme of the Seminar was “Love of
God, Love of Neighbour.”
The discussion, conducted in a warm and convivial spirit, focused on two great themes: “Theological and Spiritual Foundations” and “Human Dignity and Mutual Respect.” Points of similarity and of diversity emerged, reflecting the distinctive specific genius of the two religions.
1. For Christians the source and example of love of God and neighbour is the love of Christ for his Father, for humanity and for each person. “God is Love” (1 Jn 4, 16) and “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3,16). God’s love is placed in the human heart through the Holy Spirit. It is God who first loves us thereby enabling us to love Him in return. Love does not harm one’s neighbour but rather seeks to do to the other what one would want done to oneself (Cf. 1 Cor 13, 4-7). Love is the foundation and sum of all the commandments (Cf. Gal 5, 14).
Love of neighbour cannot be separated from love of God, because it is an expression of our love for God. This is the new commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15, 12) Grounded in Christ’s sacrificial love, Christian love is forgiving and excludes no one; it therefore also includes one’s enemies. It should be not just words but deeds (Cf. 1 Jn, 4, 18). This is the sign of its genuineness.
For Muslims, as set out in “A Common Word,” love is a timeless transcendent power which guides and transforms human mutual regard. This love, as indicated by the Holy and Beloved Prophet Muhammad, is prior to the human love for the One True God. A Hadith indicates that God’s loving compassion for humanity is even greater than that of a mother for her child (Muslim, Bab al-Tawba: 21); it therefore exists before and
independently of the human response to the One who is ‘The Loving.’ So immense is this love and compassion that God has intervened to guide and save humanity in a perfect way many times and in many places, by sending prophets and scriptures. The last of these books, the Qur’an, portrays a world of signs, a marvellous cosmos of Divine artistry, which calls forth our utter love and devotion, so that ‘those who have faith, have most love of God’ (2:165), and ‘those that believe, and do good works, the Merciful shall engender love among them.’ (19:96) In a Hadith we read that ‘Not one of you has faith until he loves for his neighbour what he loves for himself’ (Bukhari, Bab al-Iman: 13).
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