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If interreligious dialogue is to bear fruit—the fruit of mutual understanding, respect, and peace—needs to be rooted in the specific spiritual space or milieu of each religious tradition. For Christians, that milieu is “Jesus space,” a space shaped by faith in the paschal mysteries and nurtured by prayer, study, and love. With Jesus space as his starting point Benoît Standaert invites us to join him as he visits different religious spaces—those of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and agnostics. If we are willing to enter into and even dwell for a time in another spiritual space, we will be able to return to the space we call home, enriched by the gifts we have received and prepared to live in peace with those who dwell in a spiritual space that is very different from our own.
Benoît Standaert is a Benedictine monk of Saint Andrew’s Abbey in Bruges, Belgium. He teaches Scripture, spirituality, and interreligious dialogue. After completing a doctorate at the University of Nijmegen on the composition and literary genre of the Gospel of Mark, he published numerous works on Scripture and spirituality in Dutch, several of which have been translated into French and Italian. His most recent work (2007 Dutch; 2009 French) is on spirituality as the art of living and contains numerous references to different practices of the spiritual life.
