Last December, the European Space Agency spent over a billion pounds to send a package of instruments to land on the surface of Mars. This was done in the hope of learning, among other things, whether Mars has, or could once have had, the conditions to sustain life. If evidence for life on Mars were to be found, there would be huge excitement.
The fascination with the quest to discover whether primitive life forms might have existed on a neighbouring planet serves to highlight what an extraordinary place our earth is - filled with thousands upon thousands of species of plants and animals. In the Book of Genesis the Creator rejoices in the abundance of life on earth. After each day of creation, 'God saw that it was good'.
The high point of the Genesis account is the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God. It was then that 'God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good' (Gen 1:31).
Men and women are unique in this world; we alone can appreciate the wonder of creation, can love, can choose, can seek to grasp the meaning of life, and can come to know the God who made us. We do not know if any other beings like us exist in the whole vast universe.
The earth is a wonderful creation, and life is at its centre. Yet we all know that pain and suffering are also part and parcel of life. Very often it is pain and suffering that destroys our faith in the goodness of the world and even the goodness of God. The logic behind this reasoning runs as follows: if the creation is cruel, surely its creator is still more cruel. And, as one writer put it, the kindest attitude to such a God is to grant him the charity of non-belief. This is the dilemma faced by the author in our first reading from Habakkuk: "Why do you set injustice before me, why do you look on where there is tyranny? Outrage and violence, this is all I see, all is contention and discord flourishes." Then the author has a vision: "The upright will live by faithfulness" he is told. Faith will sustain the human being in difficult times, if he or she has patience.
This faith is a habit of mind, it is an attitude, it is the compass we take with us as we walk out into the world. We must have faith in life first of all; we must trust life; we must trust our fellow pilgrims on this planet, or at least link up with some we can trust. Life would be quite impossible if we got out of bed every morning expecting only the worst. We must have faith in each day. Even faith the size of a mustard seed, according to Jesus in today's gospel, will do wonderful things for us. And he came that we might have life and have it abundantly!
Everything that threatens life must be urgently addressed. Traditionally, human beings were at their most vulnerable at the beginning and at the end of the spectrum we call human life. Because they are no long or are not yet useful in the utilitarian sense, the are regarded in some quarters as dispensable. Or at the very least, they are not afforded and rendered the respect and dignity the humanity and life merits. The bishops have asked us this year to address the problem of suicide. The CSO in Ireland recorded the number of suicides registered in 2003 as 444. Four times as many men as women died in this way, 358 males as opposed to 86 females. 30% of all deaths in the 15-24 age bracket were recorded as suicide. 23% of all deaths in the 25-34 age group was recorded as suicide in 2003, making it the largest cause of death in these age groups. It is a shocking statistic that more young men die at their own hands than die in road accidents. Suicide is now one of the principal threats to life in western society. And, amazingly, the more affluent we get, the more prevalent suicide becomes.
Now we cannot for a moment pass judgement on anyone who has committed suicide. "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds the resources for coping with pain." Sometimes the pain may be physical, sometimes emotional or psychological. But because its psychological doesn't mean that it's any less real or intense. We all have our different pain threshold; what is bearable to one individual is unbearable to another. We cannot hope to understand even a fraction of the pain and isolation they must have endured. We cannot hope to understand what it was that caused them to lose faith in life so utterly and so dramatically. Is it because we have passed a negative judgement on depression and tears? Our faith life and God must embrace pain. People feel powerless in the face of suicide. And rightly so. It is a huge mystery. But one thing we could do is work towards removing the stigma that surrounds mental anguish.
Home