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All our religions have vast treasures for each of us. We inherited our religion in various ways, they enriched us and still enrich us, they unite us in different ways of loving one another.
By Brendan MacCarthaigh | India
My reading and my daily social involvements introduce me to several great women and men of all religions.
Religions? Why choose 'religions'? Why not professions? Nationalities? Eras? Accomplishments? Inventions? Discoveries? (Add lots more.) Why 'religions'?
Religions are taken to provide the fundamental explanation for life. ('What's it all about?') You can be classified under any of those headings above but that will be independently of your religion. Your religion is taken as a constant, underpinning all other life practices.
Notice, I'm saying "is taken as", not "functions as". The world is full of people who respond to one or other religion with their whole heart, and demonstrate their faith by their response to the needs of their society.
You yourself reading this might well be one of those people. Congratulations – and, on behalf of the world, thank you.
However, religions get politicised, and that inevitably leads on to hostilities. This is where the whole issue of religion gets muddied, and we resort to a variety of keep-out structures to buttress our own.
In these few paragraphs I just want to offer what I think will help you make sense of this issue. Making sense would mean that one finds oneself at peace following what one believes to be an acceptable answer to our basic question, what's-it-all-about?.
For example, I am a Christian, and within that designation a Catholic. How does that affect my efforts to make sense of life? When I was much younger I dismissed all other religions as plain wrong, and mine as clearly all right.
Many others were on the same page, or if on a different page it was labelled Hindu (with other designations under that title) or Muslim (with other designations under that title) or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Mormon, and so on.
As the level of education rose, and challenges on many sides confronted this exclusionary attitude I, and others of course, began to see that our stance could not really be totally right.
At first there was the temptation to abandon the whole lot. But I gradually discovered that though there was a lot in my Catholic texts I could no longer accept, there was still a lot that seemed right to me. Again, others of other religions went through the same thing.
Authorities in our religion tended to dig in their heels – departure from what they prescribed was in some (or great) degree, heresy. (How often in these reflections have you heard me quote the medieval sentence, To the stake with him!?)
That conservative attitude is still very much in evidence in my Christian structures, but other forces are growing in strength in struggling to identify the fundamental truth of what Christianity and Catholicism is about.
That struggle is on at this moment, in fact, and will be for a while to come.
I myself recognise that some stances bother me, and I do not accept them.
That would be true of you in your various religions – unless, and this is really the point in my wee essay, unless you have retired completely from the issues you find challenging in your own religion and have simply said, "A plague on both your houses", and retreated to non-involvement.
To myself and to you I now say, don't do that. Stay involved. All our religions have vast treasures for each of us.
We inherited our religion in various ways, they enriched us and still enrich us, they unite us in different ways of loving one another, they comfort us in their structures – how we pray, meet, celebrate, what we wear, the languages associated with our prayer life, our scriptures, how we help our children stand by values that enrich them, and so on. All great things.
It is by continuing to be involved you enrich that lovely scenario into which you have been born, into which you have introduced your children. Hold on to it.
What is this? Am I not saying "Become a Catholic"? To the stake with him… No, dear reader: I am saying, become what enriches your love for one another, and, where you encounter patches that seem to you to encourage hostility, challenge them. It cannot be right.
All religion is about loving everyone. If it is not, then it is time to reconsider. But don't jump ship. Strive to have others too believe in love. It is the ultimate meaning of us all. Your religion throbs with it. Celebrate it. God bless.
Brendan MacCarthaigh is a Christian Brother from Dublin working in India for over 50 years, mostly in Value Education with senior classes and teachers.
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