Praise the Name of the Lord

Christians and Muslims both have an abundance of names for God. The Bible provides Christians with a rich array of names for God, and the ninety-nine Names that Islam gives traditionally to God are drawn from the Qur’an. Praise the Name of the Lord is an offering of texts, from the Qur’an and Bible, meant to lead to meditation and prayer. 

To pray starting from the texts of another religion can help us to acquire a better appreciation of that religion. It is possible that we will find different echoes that can capture our attention and may nourish our prayer, encouraging dialogue with the persons among whom we are living.

Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald, MAfr, was ordained priest as a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) in 1961, and he obtained his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University (1965) and a BAhons in Arabic from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (1968). He served on the General Council of the Missionaries of Africa (1980–1986) and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He was ordained bishop in 1992 and was raised to the rank of archbishop in 2002. From 2006 to 2012, he was apostolic nuncio in Egypt and delegate to the League of Arab States. He is author (with R. Caspar) of Signs of Dialogue (1992); Dieu rêve d'unité (2005); (with John Borelli) of Interfaith Dialogue (2006), and of numerous articles.

Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana. From 1994 through 2004, she served as executive director of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which fosters dialogue among monastics of the world's religions. In addition to the volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is . . . : An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation.