(The Nationalist, 7 December 2001)
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster created a stir recently when he offered the opinion that Christianity in Britain had little influence on most people’s private or public lives and that it was close to being “vanquished”. He went on, ‘There is indifference to Christian values and the Church among many young people. We see quite a demoralized society, where the only good is what I want, the only rights are my own, and the only life with any meaning or value is the life I want for myself’. To a substantial degree, he could have been talking about Ireland, too. Indeed, it has been said that ‘Modern Ireland’s creed is that faster is better than slower; bigger is better than smaller; richer is better than poorer; now is better than later; for now is better than for ever.’ (Des O’Donnell, OMI)
Personally, I’m not worried about the Church. What troubles me is what Irish people are losing by turning their backs on Christianity, as some are. In passing it must be said that the picture is a mixed one: some who have lapsed from the liturgy (are they to be blamed?), have not lapsed from the faith.
Ireland and the Irish are becoming a superficial people, skimming lightly over the surface of life, lacking in depth. We allow ourselves to be driven so much by commercial interests that we have created a society of rush and bustle, where speed seems of great importance. This results in relationships being trivialized, and the quality of human contact being diminished.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that ‘All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms’. And a more recent Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, said that, if he were a doctor and were allowed to prescribe a remedy for all the ills of the modern world, he would prescribe silence. In ancient times, Socrates said something similar: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’.
We find it almost impossibly hard to sit in silence for a while each day and just rest our bodies, minds, and souls, even though they crave some respite from rush and from noise. Why are we so afraid to face ourselves? Why do we keep running away from ourselves? Are we not like the people Jesus spoke of in the gospel who are so taken up by the cares of the world that the word of God cannot grow in them?
I don’t think Christianity is vanquished or even close to it. I think that what we have instead is a situation where we are not listening either to Christ or our inmost selves (and the two are close). We have bartered the truth for trifles and are the losers by doing so.
God is a lover, not a rapist; he does not force himself. When we are ready to listen to him, he will be there waiting for us.