Holy days converging in April spark interfaith celebrations
It’s a convergence that happens only rarely. Coinciding with Judaism’s Passover, Christianity’s Easter and Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, Buddhists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Jains and Hindus also are celebrating their holy days in April.
The springtime collision of religious holidays is inspiring a range of interfaith events. In Chicago, there’s the Interfaith Trolley Tour coming up on April 24, in which a trolley will make stops at different faiths’ houses of worship.
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In cities across the country, Muslims are inviting people to interfaith iftars so they can break their daily Ramadan fasts in community with their non-Muslim neighbors.
In addition to Passover, Easter and Ramadan, holy days occurring in April this year include the Sikhs’ and Hindus’ Vaisakhi, the Jains’ Mahavir Jayanti, the Baha’i festival of Ridvan, and the Theravada Buddhist New Year.
Across faiths, the celebration of the overlapping holy days and religious festivals is seen as a chance to share meals and rituals. For some, it’s also a chance to learn how to cooperate among faith traditions on crucial issues, including how to help curb climate change, fight religious intolerance, and assist people fleeing Afghanistan, Ukraine and other nations during the global refugee crisis.
“The rare convergence of such a wide array of holy days is an opportunity for all of us to share what we hold sacred with our neighbors from other traditions as a way of building understanding and bridging divides,” said Eboo Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America, previously known as Interfaith Youth Core. “This is Interfaith America in microcosm.”
On Chicago’s south side, the upcoming trolley tour is intended to teach participants about this year’s April holidays, which are converging for the first time in the same month since 1991, said Kim Schultz, coordinator of creative initiatives at the Chicago Theological Seminary’s InterReligious Institute.
The trolley will stop at several sacred spaces, including a Baptist church, a mosque and a synagogue, and will end with an iftar at sunset catered by recently resettled Afghan refugees.
“We’re asking people to take advantage of this confluence, the convergence … more than half of the world is celebrating or commemorating the critical moment in our faith traditions,” said Hind Makki director of recruitment and communications at American Islamic College.
The event is sponsored by the American Islamic College, the Chicago Theological Seminary, the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology, the Hyde Park &Kenwood Interfaith Council and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. After more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions that upended many holidays, followers are eager to meet in person again.
Organizers of the Chicago event said they had arranged for a trolley that would carry 25 people, but there was so much interest across faiths that they had to arrange for a bigger trolley for 40 people instead. And then, when more kept joining, a second trolley.
“This is a great time,” Makki said. “So, why not take the opportunity to learn about each other’s traditions, to learn about each other through those traditions.”
