The mystery of life, death and belief

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

I phoned a friend some days ago. My introductory question was: ‘Is there a God, do you believe in God’. 

He has a sharp wit and immediately replied: ‘I think you have the wrong number, you should have phoned Et cum spiritu tuo’. I’m still laughing. No, I never did phone 220. But I have been thinking so much about these matters of late. Birth, life, death.

I have been working as a hospital chaplain for the last four years. I keep telling friends that it has been a life-enhancing experience. And it certainly has been.

Maybe it’s the job, maybe it’s my age, 71, maybe it has something to do with the death of a friend’s wife, but I have been scratching my head an awful of late, wondering about it all, wondering about the mystery of life and death too.

Imagine if I as a priest were to write here that I don’t believe in the afterlife. I can only presume I would be called before some church authority to answer for myself. And then there would be all the bureaucratic rigmarole, the secret files, the dossier would grow exponentially and then I’d probably have to sign a form saying I believe in this that and the other.

A former Dominican colleague and friend of mine, who died in 2002, often made the point to me that there are many priests who no longer believe in God and that the church should make it easy for them to retire from ministry.

All that said, back to the big question of our mortality.

No, not because I don’t want to be annoyed by any church authorities, the older I get, the more I’m inclined to believe in life after death, resurrection and God. But please, don’t ask me to put any specific shape on any of that.

Remember, anything we say about God is said in terms of analogy.

But who at all are we? What’s important, what’s not?

Every time I think of my parents and that’s every day, I keep saying to myself that they have not been annihilated. Somehow, someway, yes, I believe they are in some sort of communion and a communion that involves God.

Every day in my job, in the company of sick people, listening to their stories, looking at them I am always amazed at their grace. The kindness that I have experienced at the hands of sick people has honestly humbled me.

I keep saying to myself surely we are made for more than this, this ‘mortal coil of ours’.

I could well be looking for an excuse as I approach the last years of my life. I don’t think so. If there is nothing in the beyond, does that mean we are all doomed? 

While I find many of the man-made rules of most religions tedious, a minutia that seems to enslave people, I still say out loud, yes, I falteringly believe in God, the goodness of God and in resurrection.

It’s an exciting project. But in the meantime I think it’s important for all of us in our works and words to spread the news of kindness and goodness.

Nope, I’m not going to bother phoning that 220 number. Not yet anyway.