EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF MID-GBI

3 NOVEMBER 2006, AT EDGWARE

In place of the Annual Meeting of MID-GBI, which had to be postponed in May 2006, an extraordinary general meeting was held to update the members about what has been happening in MID-GBI and to discuss future prospects. The day combined a business meeting in the morning, and a “meeting for dialogue” in the afternoon. It was held at St Mary of the Cross, the Anglican Benedictine community at Edgware, who invited us to use them as a venue for this important meeting, and offered us a splendid lunch. We joined the community for Midday Prayer before our afternoon session.

BUSINESS MEETING

Representatives attended from Turvey, Cockfosters, Stanbrook, Ramsgate, Chester, Worth and Prinknash, together with members of the Anglican communities of Alton, Burford, Burnham Abbey, Fairacres, the Sisters of Bethany (Southsea), Tymawr, Wantage, West Malling, and the home community of Edgware. Sr JohnMary Northcote. r.a. represented Westminster Interfaith. Apologies were received from Fr George Guiver, Mirfield, Sr Philippa Mannweiler, Brownshill, and Br Herbert Kaden, Turvey.

After a short period of silence and prayer of offering, the morning was devoted to a business meeting as follows:

v  Everyone met the new MID treasurer, Mr Adrian Jones who briefly explained his role in MID-GBI.

v  Then followed the explanation of how the European DIM Council approved our Draft Constitution in June 2006.

v   We clarified such issues as membership of MID and the role of the Coordinator.

v  In view of the constant support of the Anglican communities, which are not members of UMS, it was proposed and decided at the meeting to include in the MID-GBI Committee a representative of these.

v  Similarly the committee will include a representative of the UMS Anglican communities. Since June 2006, Abbess M Thérèse of Edgware has been representing the UMS communities on the Committee.

v  Provision was made for another possibility: that the Coordinator in future might be an Anglican monk or nun from one of the UMS communities, and an addendum was added to the Constitution allowing, in that case, for the appointment of a RC delegate monk/nun to liaise with the RC Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

v  A further proposal was made and accepted, to take the word “monastic” in its widest sense and include in membership of MID the oblates of each community. Benedictine Oblates are attached to their monastery in a way that is quite unique in the Church, and very unlike the “Third Orders” and other affiliated members of religious orders. The time seems right to include them in the work of interreligious dialogue, particularly as we are moving more into dialogue with Islam and Judaism, who do not have a monastic order as such, but would readily recognise the dedication of lay oblates. Oblate Directors will be invited to inform all oblates of this, so that those interested in helping their community in this work may do so.

 NB. All the proposals affecting issues of membership and altering the approved constitution will need to be ratified by the European Central Council of DIM/MID at their next annual general meeting in May 2007

MEETING FOR DIALOGUE

In the afternoon Saeed AbdulRahim our invited guest spoke to us of what we can all contribute to dialogue with Islam. He spoke with great feeling and joy of the “commonalities” we find in the Qur’an and in the Christian Scriptures and frequently mentioned “the Prophet Jesus, blessed be he”, and “Her holiness the lady Mary”, which his Christian hearers found very moving. He had many suggestions about what we might do in dialogue with Muslims, including the production of a book outlining the teachings of our Faiths on characters and themes which appear in the Scriptures of both; a meeting of Muslim women and monastic women, all wearing the veil, and willing to talk about the issue of why we wear the veil; a meeting of monastic men and Muslim men; visits to our local (or London) mosques to get the feel of the Muslim place of worship etc. etc. His evident kindness and goodness, as well as his desire for peaceful dialogue with Christians shone out in everything he said. After his talk there was a short period of time for questions and answers before we ended the day, as we had begun it, with a period of silence and a closing prayer bringing together in thanksgiving the themes of the day.

Everyone agreed it was a very good meeting, and we all expressed our gratitude to our speaker and to the Edgware community. (A fuller account will appear in Monastic Encounter, December 2006 edition.)