Garett and Ryan visit Egypt

​

Meeting Egyptians in community is not going to Egypt. Okay, you can get some of the language sounds and stories and songs, you can maybe even get lucky enough to try some foods cooked with home-country love, but nothing prepared me for the boats, planes, trains and automobiles worth of diversity that Egypt had to offer. I was humbled and overjoyed to focus our short two weeks in Egypt on the Jesuits – who are we? where do we work? why? – and from the day 1 airport pickup in Cairo to the day 13 lunch and cake celebration on my birthday, I felt privileged to have finally visited Um l dunya.

I was especially moved by two elements of the Jesuit presence in Egypt – the spaces we create and the relationships we foster. Beyond the more traditionally important schools and churches, I was inspired by the evolving creativity inherent in our Egyptian missions, responding to needs and imagining possibilities around us with – especially in El Minia and Alexandria – sprawling spaces that welcome all – the rich and poor, the believer and nonbeliever, the Muslim and Christian, the Hungarian classical dance group and Egyptian metal band alike. Here, faith and culture have a space to coexist and chat. Secondly, in all of our ministries, I was moved by how much I noticed a quite vibrant Jesuit – lay relationship. Even in just a short journey, we met dozens of passionate and formed lay leaders – young, old, and everywhere in-between – who had big responsibilities and close rapport with us. Walking around these campuses or centers gave a real sense of shared mission and shared family, a true joy. I’m excited to go back.

Garett Gundlach SJ

“Finding a key to life”

To many, Egypt can be reduced to being a land of tourism, a narrative that stops with the pyramids and perhaps a pleasure cruise down the Nile. But, the privilege of my vocation was being able to receive the gifts of hospitality and encounter from the Jesuits who labor there, and the people who they serve. I saw the apostolic priorities being incarnated through work with youth via our schools, the cultural centre in Alexandria, and the giving of the Exercises in various forms and fashions. I witnessed the graced complexity of the circumstances that Egyptian people face in a country with a population of more than 100 million, and the many cultural and religious experiences that contribute to the contemporary Egyptian identity. A visit to Wadi Natrun reminded me that our own responses to God, and the Ignatian emphasis on radical love and service, had roots reaching back to St. Anthony and the desert mothers and fathers and the irreplaceable role of prayer in fostering and nurturing our vocations.

While in Egypt, I received news of my 94-year-old grandmother passing. An image came to mind, a relief from the temple of Horus depicting the falcon-faced Horus gripping an ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, as he gently holds the hand of a recently departed pharaoh and prepares him for what is to come. The ancient Egyptian funerary imagery led me in my own reflections on this land of monks and mastabas, of verdant Nile-fed vegetation and arid desert. And, what I found was not death, but life. The relationships that I formed in Egypt, the sharing of the experience with Garrett, Joseph, and many others, and the gift of what we have received helped me to see that we move from life to life. This is the spirit that must animate our vocations, the spirit of the risen Christ who grips our hand even now and invites us to labor with him and with the others whom he has also called. It is nothing other than a call to embrace and nourish the fullness and flourishing of life with all of its artistic, technical, and soulful dimensions. And, for this reminder of what my own Christian faith is about, and the gratitude and hope that it gave me in a time of personal loss, I am truly grateful to the Umm l’Dunia.

Ryan Birjoo SJ