World is divided into two classes of people
Given the cares of daily life, few people stand back to view the wider picture, even the wider picture of their own lives.
This picture reveals, however, that today's world is divided into two classes of people: those living with sure hope and those in the grip of radical despair.
Here is the great chasm, the fundamental division in modern culture. On each side of this chasm people hold a wide variety of attitudes, behaviours and ambitions.
The division can be obscured by inconsistencies on both sides - people of despair who act as if they had ultimate hope, hopeful people who forget their hope.
Hope, however, profoundly shapes a person's whole life and a whole society, giving it a unity of vision and action. Despair does likewise.
Ernest Becker, US author of The Denial of Death, brilliantly captured the sense of futility of reflective people on the despair side of this gulf.
"A person spends years coming into his own," he wrote, "developing his talent, his unique gifts, perfecting his discriminations about the world, broadening and sharpening his appetite, learning to bear the disappointments of life, becoming mature, seasoned.
Unique creature
"Finally he is a unique creature in nature, standing with some dignity and nobility and transcending the animal condition; no longer driven, no longer a complete reflex, not stamped out of any mold.
"Then the real tragedy: that it takes 60 years of incredible suffering and effort to make such an individual, and then he is good only for dying."
Becker doesn't describe this person's anguish. He simply says: "He feels agonizingly unique, and yet he knows that this makes no difference as far as ultimates are concerned. He has to go the way of the grasshopper, even though it takes longer."
Less reflective victims of despair put it more bluntly: "eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow we die." Little hopes and satisfactions distract them from the dizzying emptiness of life with no ultimate hope.
Today, of course, despair finds far more ways to disguise itself: relentless consumerism, junk TV, obsession with sport, sexual promiscuity, drugs, fear of commitment, lack of responsibility even to loved ones, a fluid morality.
It also lies behind the attack on the rights of the unborn, the many assaults on marriage and family life, the rising rates of depression and self-destruction.
Oblivious
In Ireland our "elites" have nonchalantly embraced the ideology of despair, oblivious, it seems, to its hollowness and the destruction it entails.
It is deeply embedded in our political system, now based on a deformed understanding of human dignity, a lack of concern for the common good and a view of society as predominantly "the economy".
The media, especially RTE and the Irish Times zealously champion despair and choke off all debate, preventing any challenge to it.
Even colleges and universities, which should be hothouses of argument in search of the truth, impart a drab, intolerant conformity to the culture of despair.
How could any family or society concerned about its future allow its promising young people to be exposed to such soul-destroying darkness?
The source of this hopelessness is Secularism, rooted in the deliberate but irrational exclusion of God from personal life, family and society.
It is a vision of life which draws its strength from what it opposes - Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church - rather than from what it proposes, nihilism, a resigned acceptance of a meaningless existence.
On the other side of the great cultural chasm are Christians, who believe in the resurrection of Jesus and who hope to share in eternal happiness through the power of Christ.
Eternal happiness
For them, life has a purpose far beyond anything we could ever imagine or achieve by our own efforts alone: eternal happiness with God in the company of the angels and saints.
They are moving towards a definite destination, heaven, and everything on earth is judged by how it helps or obstructs the journey.
And that journey can be obstructed, by sin, rebellion against God, hardness of heart, and even by simple neglect of "the pearl of great price",
It was a phenomenal moment in history when human beings first came to grasp that the human body, not just the soul, will survive death; that it will not just disintegrate but be transformed or "glorified".
This revolution in our understanding of death, that the power of death was broken, it could no longer hold its victims, also revolutionised our understanding of life. Life now had a future, a wonderful purpose.
But it was not sophisticated reasoning that led humanity to this new insight.
It was experience, the actual encounter with a man who had experienced resurrection, with Jesus who revealed himself as alive and bodily present to his disciples.
That anyone would reject this offer of perfect happiness, often without even examining it, is the ultimate in poignant absurdity.
This picture reveals, however, that today's world is divided into two classes of people: those living with sure hope and those in the grip of radical despair.
Here is the great chasm, the fundamental division in modern culture. On each side of this chasm people hold a wide variety of attitudes, behaviours and ambitions.
The division can be obscured by inconsistencies on both sides - people of despair who act as if they had ultimate hope, hopeful people who forget their hope.
Hope, however, profoundly shapes a person's whole life and a whole society, giving it a unity of vision and action. Despair does likewise.
Ernest Becker, US author of The Denial of Death, brilliantly captured the sense of futility of reflective people on the despair side of this gulf.
"A person spends years coming into his own," he wrote, "developing his talent, his unique gifts, perfecting his discriminations about the world, broadening and sharpening his appetite, learning to bear the disappointments of life, becoming mature, seasoned.
Unique creature
"Finally he is a unique creature in nature, standing with some dignity and nobility and transcending the animal condition; no longer driven, no longer a complete reflex, not stamped out of any mold.
"Then the real tragedy: that it takes 60 years of incredible suffering and effort to make such an individual, and then he is good only for dying."
Becker doesn't describe this person's anguish. He simply says: "He feels agonizingly unique, and yet he knows that this makes no difference as far as ultimates are concerned. He has to go the way of the grasshopper, even though it takes longer."
Less reflective victims of despair put it more bluntly: "eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow we die." Little hopes and satisfactions distract them from the dizzying emptiness of life with no ultimate hope.
Today, of course, despair finds far more ways to disguise itself: relentless consumerism, junk TV, obsession with sport, sexual promiscuity, drugs, fear of commitment, lack of responsibility even to loved ones, a fluid morality.
It also lies behind the attack on the rights of the unborn, the many assaults on marriage and family life, the rising rates of depression and self-destruction.
Oblivious
In Ireland our "elites" have nonchalantly embraced the ideology of despair, oblivious, it seems, to its hollowness and the destruction it entails.
It is deeply embedded in our political system, now based on a deformed understanding of human dignity, a lack of concern for the common good and a view of society as predominantly "the economy".
The media, especially RTE and the Irish Times zealously champion despair and choke off all debate, preventing any challenge to it.
Even colleges and universities, which should be hothouses of argument in search of the truth, impart a drab, intolerant conformity to the culture of despair.
How could any family or society concerned about its future allow its promising young people to be exposed to such soul-destroying darkness?
The source of this hopelessness is Secularism, rooted in the deliberate but irrational exclusion of God from personal life, family and society.
It is a vision of life which draws its strength from what it opposes - Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church - rather than from what it proposes, nihilism, a resigned acceptance of a meaningless existence.
On the other side of the great cultural chasm are Christians, who believe in the resurrection of Jesus and who hope to share in eternal happiness through the power of Christ.
Eternal happiness
For them, life has a purpose far beyond anything we could ever imagine or achieve by our own efforts alone: eternal happiness with God in the company of the angels and saints.
They are moving towards a definite destination, heaven, and everything on earth is judged by how it helps or obstructs the journey.
And that journey can be obstructed, by sin, rebellion against God, hardness of heart, and even by simple neglect of "the pearl of great price",
It was a phenomenal moment in history when human beings first came to grasp that the human body, not just the soul, will survive death; that it will not just disintegrate but be transformed or "glorified".
This revolution in our understanding of death, that the power of death was broken, it could no longer hold its victims, also revolutionised our understanding of life. Life now had a future, a wonderful purpose.
But it was not sophisticated reasoning that led humanity to this new insight.
It was experience, the actual encounter with a man who had experienced resurrection, with Jesus who revealed himself as alive and bodily present to his disciples.
That anyone would reject this offer of perfect happiness, often without even examining it, is the ultimate in poignant absurdity.
