The Stephen Fry topic

The piece below is in the current issue of 'Spirituality', which appears every two months. It is published by Dominican Publications.

Michael Commane

Ten-year-old Maurice is a great little footballer, indeed he’s on the squad of his county under-12 soccer team.

Some weeks ago while I was chatting with his mother he came to the phone and asked me if I believed in God. He had read or heard something I had written in a newspaper column about resurrection. Last Christmas was his first time not to receive a gift from Santa so he was now wondering about God.

I baptised this little boy and am friendly with his family so there was no question of speaking anything but the truth. I was caught on the hop and on the phone too.

There was a moment’s silence and then I said that the time I feel strongest in my faith is when I visit the grave of my parents. I told him that when I look down at that soil I always say out loud that my parents have not been destroyed. Somehow or other I believe that they are with God in heaven. 

He was listening and then we went on to talk about something else.

Resurrection is a big word. Stephen Fry was all over social media after his comments to Gay Byrne on the RTE programme ‘The Meaning of Life’. Fry expressed in strong words his disbelief in God and any idea of a life after death.

It so happens that I was born into a Christian community so that’s a strong reason why I believe in a resurrection. Those particular circumstances gave me the first gentle push to set off on the journey.

There is an adventure, an excitement in believing in a God, who in some miraculous way, calls us to a life beyond the grave. Wishful thinking?

It’s part of my DNA to believe in resurrection. The world is made up of all sorts and types of people, people who believe, people who don’t, people who are adamant for or against resurrection. There are those who just don’t know.

But every time we see or experience something good and true is it not a pointer to a reality far beyond us, is it in some way or other a hint of resurrection?

That may all sound terribly weak, even evasive. But maybe in the times in which we live we too easily dismiss the effectiveness of hints and signs. We are tempted to look for immediate answers and results. Surely there has to be place for wonder and mystery. 

And there are indeed many hints and signs in the world about us to allow me say, yes, I believe in resurrection. But please don’t ask me to describe it. Our descriptions fall far too short of what it must be about. And maybe the descriptions are implausible.