YChristian? with Anthony McCarthy. 

Anthony McCarthy is the National Coordinator of TOWARDS2008.  This will be his third World Youth Day, having attended WYD2002 in Toronto, Canada and WYD2005 in Cologne, Germany.

When you ask me the question, ‘Why am I a Christian’ a few answers spring readily to mind.

Firstly, my Christian faith is grounded in the belief that there is only one God.  No other rendering of creation makes much sense to me unless it all leads back to a supreme being from whom all other creatures take their existence. 

That the Christian faith is located within the Judeo-Christian tradition serves to demonstrate the free gift of grace which God has offered to humanity throughout history.  And for me, the number and detail of Old Testament prophecies which find their fulfilment in the New Testament provides compelling evidence of the mystical as well as poetic hand of God working through human history.

The lives of particular Christians also provide significant inspiration and reason for me to be a Christian.  Starting with Christ Himself and then Our Lady, the lives of the saints have provided extraordinary witness in so many varied ways.  From the humility and strength of St Peter to the eloquence and ambition of St Paul, to the wonderful love of St Francis and the scholarship of St Thomas Aquinas.

In more recent times, Pope John Paul II, Blessed Mother Teresa, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frasati and Saint Gianna Molla have provided me – and many others – with very human examples of holiness in the ‘modern world.’ 

The Christian contribution to society and culture is one of the most underestimated arguments for the Christian faith.  Can we imagine what our society would be like if the Church had not invented universities, had not developed hospitals, had not invested so significantly in music, art, and architecture, if the Church had not played such a critical role in developing social teaching, works of charity and the public conscience?

All these reasons provide inspiration and depth to the Christian story.  But as St Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians “If Christ be not risen again, then our preaching in vain, and your faith is also vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:14)

Inspiration, poetry - even mysticism - are all useful, but for me the rock of my faith is Christ’s Resurrection.  And thousands of first century Christians died in testifying to this historical reality: thus the ‘blood of the martyrs’ became ‘the seed of the Church.’