Masses Today

6.30: Mary Cunnane, (Anniv).
11.00: Monica Duggan & Patrick Cahalan, (Anniv)
6.30: Rita Mullins, Shop St., (Anniv)

AS I WAS SAYING...

The Christmas lights were switched on officially on Friday evening. The shops are noticeably more crowded already. Shop Street gets more difficult to negotiate by the day. Today, of course, is the first day of Advent, the liturgical run up to the feast of Christmas. So, 'let the games begin!'

But wait! We live today in an instantaneous world. Modern technology conveys the desired information at the touch of a button, literally. Transportation systems move us around in minutes to places that, only a few decades ago, would have been journeys of days or weeks. Telecommunication satellites allow us to join the protesters in Kiev, or the soldiers in Iraq as they break down doors and drag from their beds dazzled citizens. We witness death and destruction as it happens.

This immediacy of life has wreaked havoc in human relationships. We move into and out of each other's lives at an incredible speed. We take what we need, grab what we can, as we speed past each other. Even the covenanted relationships of life become a part of the blur and, tragically, lose their depth and permanence. Genuine friendship, simmered slowly over years of caring and loving, through good times and bad, is for many of us only a fleeting childhood memory of our parents and our grandparents and their neighbours.

Without denying its truly positive dimensions, in human terms we pay an enormous price for this progress. Our appetites - for food, sex, friendship, emotional security, intellectual curiosity-are conditioned by the world to demand immediate gratification. I am convinced that many abusive relationships are that precisely because there was not sufficient time for appropriate means of interaction and intimacy to be discovered. It was too much, too soon. (Fr Albert McDonnell published an article on this very topic some five years ago called "When Strangers Marry!") The parties involved, or at least one of them, were unable to wait, and the depth of interaction, trust, and the sort of human loving that is more profound than the fulfilment of any momentary need, simply had not developed. They skipped over the most important part of the process of human knowing: waiting.

We pay a price for instant gratification not only in relationships, but also in individual growth. Students will say, "Tell me what I need to know and show me the shortest route." This has yielded a new generation of information managers who are more adept than any who have gone before them at the manipulation of raw data. They have immediate access to more facts than at any time in history. But information alone is largely useless. Information becomes knowledge only after the painstaking work of interpretation. Without interpretation, which computerised information systems cannot provide, then facts are just facts, and nothing more. Knowledge, however, is not the end of the process. There is a further dimension of knowing: wisdom. It escapes those who pursue it frenetically; wisdom is a gift only for those who wait. Knowledge may arrive instantly; wisdom seeps in slowly.

Advent provides us with that opportunity, to sit back and savour, to anticipate the great gift that is Christmas. Instant coffee should never taste the same again!

-Dick Lyng.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

SCIENCE AND GOD CAN COEXIST

We had Science Week in Ireland recently. Traditional Christianity has been in retreat for many years in Europe, too jaded to fight off attacks from the secular left. Religion is also under attack from some scientists - most notably from evolution expert, Richard Dawkins. Professor Dawkins interprets his brief to be much wider than explaining evolution. He is a proselytising atheist, believing religion is bad - principally because, in his opinion, religion prevents its adherents from acquiring a true understanding of the world. He speaks frequently against religion and his onslaught has become much more forceful and bitter since 9/11. Dawkins believes the concept of God is man-made and that religion was invented as a "comfort-blanket" . He believes the concept of religion has infected the human mind as a mental virus that is transmitted from generation to generation. This hypothesis can be presented in a plausible manner and, although impossible to prove, it is also impossible to disprove.

Although not all of Dawkins' points are wrong, in my view he is entirely wrong in his overall argument. It is true that some terrible things have been done in the name of religion. But what about the countless number of people whose lives have been enriched by religion? I can speak only of Christianity because I don' t know enough about other religions. I fail to see how the basic Christian message of love God, love your neighbour, forgive your enemy and take responsibility for your actions can do anything but good for those who abide by it.

It is true that the Christian churches, as human institutions, have often erred grievously - but name any human institution that has not. The failings of churches as institutions do not discredit the basic Christian message. Many people are killed by cars every year. So what do we do - ban cars? No, cars are useful things. The problem is careless driving.

If religion has such a bad influence, one would expect that regimes in which religion played no part would be singularly happy and thriving places. We had two such notable regimes in the 20th century - Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. We must hold our nerve in Europe. Because religion has erred we should not heave the water out of the bath - the baby is in there. Institutions that err need reform, not obliteration. The main alternative to religion is secular humanism. This philosophy holds that nothing greater than mankind exists and we must work out our lives entirely reliant on our own resources. Some people, but I believe no more than a small minority, can live decent and fulfilled lives drawing on this philosophy. The majority of people need the solace of religion.

Conventional Christianity is a decent philosophy with predictable societal consequences when practised genuinely. Secularists would be well advised to stop trying to reduce it to a position of no significance. The average person's need for religion remains and a greatly weakened Christianity could be replaced by some other form of religion hostile to social progress.

-William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at UCC and Science correspondent for The Irish Times.

ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS

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