Thought for the Week

Mgr Kieran Heskin

Sacred Heart Church, Ilkley

AS I have watched television or listened to the radio, particularly in recent years, there have been countless times when I have heard or seen journalists reviewing the papers or celebrities being interviewed who seem to feel obliged to preface their remarks by announcing their disdain for religion. The implication seems to be, I have grown out of all that rubbish; I've seen through it all.

An enquiring mind can reach an intellectually honest position not to believe in God after serious consideration, but that does not entitle them to claim that religion is a dead duck, that a person has to be dumb to be religious or that religion is a lost cause.

For me, a believer in God, the closing of the door on religion would certainly not be a step into a wider world. Some may argue that my faith-view of reality is a delusion, but they cannot logically deny that a vision of life stretching beyond time and space is far more attractive than one that sees it ending in an urn of ashes or a handful of dust. To believe that human actions have eternal consequences attributes an infinitely greater significance to life than the belief that human actions are only trivial blips on the screen of meaningless existence. To believe that human beings are infinitely precious to God, that they reflect his nature, enjoy his daily support and are destined to be with him forever may be considered delusions by some but at least they are delusions of grandeur: dynamic delusions that add point, energy and nobility to life. To abandon them may be honest and honourable but it seems less a grand illumination and more a putting out of the lights. For those of us who enjoy the breadth and depth that belongs to a faith-view of reality, its rejection could never be a matter for self-congratulation but rather for deep mourning and great sadness.

To focus only on the negative aspects of religion as so often happens and to ignore its positive contribution to individuals and communities down through the ages is not the mark of superior minds but of arrogant prejudice and intellectual blindness. Believers are quite rightly never allowed to forget their failings. But the failings are not on one side alone.