The great English novelist EM Forster is not generally considered an author of high comedy, but I do recall a line from A Passage to India that caused me to laugh out loud when first I read it.
In describing the attitude of a character toward questions of faith, Forster wrote, “Ronny approved of religion as long as it endorsed the national anthem, but he objected when it attempted to influence his life.”
It is a sentiment that appears to be rather widely shared today.
There is a school of thought that seems willing to allow “religion” to carry on in the background of our society, so long as it does not manifest itself in any form that would actually have some bearing upon our lives.
Yet our faith mandates public profession: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
And the love we are called to show as members of the Mystical Body of Christ is made manifest by deeds: “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:18)
I was once privileged to find myself sitting across the breakfast table from a very well-known English priest who had spent the previous 12 months giving talks to teachers and principals at Catholic schools in Australia and in the United Kingdom.
He had heard many different perspectives.
Yet the conversation which remained foremost in his mind was his encounter with the principal of a world-renowned school in England.
This Scottish headmaster with whom he was conversing was a convert to Catholicism.
The prestigious English school at which he was principal was not founded by Catholics nor, on the whole, were its teaching staff and students Catholic.
The priest asked this man how he got along with the other staff and – particularly – the students of the school, in view of his very public Catholic faith.
The headmaster said that he made no bones about his beliefs and that the staff and students seemed to respect him for that.
“After all,” he said, “if you think these are strange alien beliefs that need to be kept hidden, do you really believe them?”
It is a question we all ought to ask ourselves, especially in light of the International Eucharistic Congress that we will be hosting in 2028.
If each line of the creed does not actually have some bearing on our lives, do we really believe it?
Our faith, by definition, is not an addendum to the national anthem.
It illumines our whole life – an expression of our very being as participants in the life of God.
It informs who we are and all that we do; it is not simply a community social activity that occupies one hour of our week.
I myself have recently been called upon to give a series of talks to classes of students at a few Catholic primary and secondary schools.
Following each of my presentations, I was expecting a series of hostile interrogations, particularly from the senior students.
I was amazed by how many such questions I received.
None. Not one.
The students asked a great many questions of course – one grade seven boy posed the perennial “what is the meaning of life?” – but they were all genuinely interested to hear my answers.
Our faith is far more compelling than we often think.
For those who have never had our Catholic faith presented to them straight – with no evasions, no obfuscation – it is fascinating.
And this is largely because it all hangs together; each part supports each other part and forms a unity of belief and an understanding of the universe and our place in it that is unmatched by anything else the world has to offer.
Moreover, thanks to over two millennia of saintly thought, prayer and reflection upon life in the light of Christ, the church has a rather compelling story to tell.
The many events that are being offered to deepen our faith in the lead-up to the International Eucharistic Congress in 2028 will serve as opportunities to re-ignite our Catholic imaginations.
If each of us plays our part to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), we might well be surprised at the response we encounter.
If we truly believe what we profess and do not regard our faith as some strange set of alien beliefs that must be excused and modified to be rendered socially acceptable, then those around us might take more genuine interest.
They might find themselves as compelled as we are.
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