Do you believe in God?

I thought that heading might grab your attention! How and ever, this is a serious and fundamental question that you might need to face up to.

We have been prompted to delve into this pivotal subject by two separate newspaper pieces I came across in the last few days. In last week’s ‘Westmeath Examiner’, the new rector at Mullingar Union of Parishes, Archdeacon Ian Horner, delivered a positive message in this regard: ‘There are a lot of young people about and there is renewed interest in faith, with reports suggesting people are getting interested in the old Christian story once again,’ he said.

Just in case you might doubt Reverend Horner, or suspect he is whistling in the dark, a recent paragraph from the ‘Daily Telegraph’ had this to say; ‘Belief in God has doubled in the last four years among young people. More than one third of the 18-24-year-olds now believe in supernatural deity. In the same age group, atheism has fallen from 49% to 32%.’

I remember hearing a local story a few years back, where a young lad at a supermarket checkout, blessed himself on hearing the six o’clock Angelus bell. Some shoppers in the queue looked bemused while others looked away. Now, if those same people had passed a mosque or a Muslim holy place, they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at worshippers falling to the ground in prayer… and rightly so.

The scandals in the Christian churches over the last 30 years did untold damage, especially to the younger generation, but maybe all the puss has finally been lanced from the infection and young people are coming back. Perhaps a new generation is looking for spiritual guidance and seeking a meaning in this crazy world we inhabit today? Down through history, going back to Judas Iscariot, there have always been some bad priests. Over the last generation, the second most affected victims of evil clergy were the good priests. The great thing is that it was the bad priests who found themselves eliminated and the good ones prevailed. I know a few priests and I write, without fear of contradiction that there have never been as many good priests in the Church – and I do not confine that assessment just to Catholic clergy.

There are fewer of them in this country than ever before. Most are getting old, overworked, often under-appreciated; but they carry on their selfless caring of people, be that defined through parish boundaries or the walls of hospitals and nursing homes. Let us hope that percentage of young people discovering faith for the first time will be represented by young priests in the future.

It’s an awful reflection on all of us when one feels compelled to state, ‘I am not a religious person’, when trying to give a balanced take on this subject. It shouldn’t matter and few people don’t have some bit of religion after you scratch the surface. All of my life I have found a truism in the saying, ‘there are no agnostics in the trenches’. If that old plane is diving down with all engines dead, the word on most passengers’ lips will be ‘God’. My best friend’s brother claimed to have a direct line to God and wouldn’t have anything to do with a priest for 40 years. Three days before he died he asked for the priest!

‘God as we understand him’ is the best God of all. I may have told you before of my old Cavan friend, John Charles. John was a shrewd Cavan man (is there any other kind?!) and this was his take on whether to believe there is a God.

‘I don’t know for sure, but I try to live as if there is a God. This gives order and no little contentment to my life and to my family. If there is a God, I’ll have got it right and lost nothing. If there is no God, I’ll never know and it won’t matter. But wouldn’t I be some bollix if I carried on denying God and then had to face him on the last day!’

My own simple take on it is that if there is a day of judgement, 60% of the marks will be awarded for how we treated our fellow human beings – ‘do unto others’ and all that. We are told that it isn’t for us to judge, but can there be any doubt but that the hottest corner of hell will be reserved for the Putins, Netanyahus and their ilk. Another warm corner will be reserved for those who invent and spread scurrilous lies about someone they cannot be like.

Think about it and remember there are a lot of different ways in which you can show belief in a higher power and still be ‘not very religious’. I just hope that next time that young fellow saying his Angelus in a shop will be copied instead of ridiculed.

Don’t Forget

A pessimist expects nothing on a silver platter except tarnish.