Press Releases
Dean's Address at Alex Higgins' Thanksgiving Service
Excerpts from the address by the Dean of Belfast,
the Very Rev Dr Houston McKelvey, at the Thanksgiving Service for the life of Alex Higgins in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, on Monday 2nd August 2010
In his address the Dean commented on:
• The media and public’s response to Alex’s life and death
• The proposal to erect a memorial. He suggests that it be linked with fundraising for the international world-leading work of the Cancer Centre at the City Hospital close to Alex’s home area
• That the difficulties of coping with fame and fortune were foremost of the temptations faced by Christ himself
• That God’s judgment, love and mercy awaits all.
EXCERPTS
ALEX’S PRODIGIOUS RECORD OF CHAMPIONSHIP WINS IS RECORDED IN THE ORDER OF SERVICE BOOKLET
Alex ‘Sandy’ Higgins was a person of prodigious talent at his chosen sport. The record is there for all to see. I decided to include the headline titles of this record in the order of service for today. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t come across it in the acres of newspaper pages which have been produced since his death.
The news media - local, national and international - and through it the public have had their say. And most of what has been said is not important to what we are here to do today - which is to pray for his son and daughter, his family and his true friends; to commend his soul to a merciful God and to thank God for that which was true and noble in Alex’s life.
APPEAL TO ASSOCIATE ANY MEMORIAL WITH THE CANCER CENTRE AND RESEARCH IN BELFAST CITY
There has been speculation about how best this city and the sporting community should mark Alex’s life and achievements. I offer a considered suggestion in response to that quest. The question I asked myself was, ‘How do we honour a Donegall Road man, a world beater who died of cancer?’
Well it so happens that in Alex’s quarter of this city, there is another team of international world beaters in the field of cancer research and the care of cancer victims. I refer to the Cancer Centre at the Belfast City Hospital whose site adjoins the Donegall and Lisburn Roads.
At a time when our health and public services per force are under immense financial strain, could I appeal that if finance is to be expended on raising a memorial in Alex’s memory - please could it be designed in such a way that it could safely receive donations well into the future to help those suffering with this disease, and help finance those doing brilliant research in our hospitals and our universities in this city to find more methods of combating it.
We really do have internationally proven talent here in that field in this city and that is why we have made an exception at this thanksgiving service and are having a retiring collection. I encourage you to make a donation as you leave this Cathedral. It is not something we usually do despite our frequent pastoral encounters with those who are suffering from cancer.
I commend to your generosity this cause. I ask for your generous response today, as a practical way of honouring Alex’s memory. I appeal for a memorial which will evoke ongoing support for our city’s cancer centre and its sadly necessary work. Please will you all do what you can to channel the demonstration of support for Alex which we have seen over this past week into a serious positive effort for the Cancer Centre. May his sporting record be the basis of research and care well into the future. It is a cause which like his playing will unite people to challenge one of the greatest enemies of human life.
CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT
Alex at a very young age encountered two of the greatest temptations possible - fame and fortune. He found it difficult to cope with both. He was not the first to find this difficult and he certainly will not be the last. Daily we see reminders of this in news about so-called celebrities who despite the best of provision of personal coaches and gurus are making a pig’s mess of their lives.
Don’t underestimate the challenge of instant wealth and publicity in this 24/7 media world. But do keep in mind the reality that fame and fortune were two of the most severe temptations which Jesus Christ faced in the desert when he prepared for his earthly ministry.
Fame - do the sensational thing. Jump off the top of the temple and when God intervenes, by sending angels to catch you, you will have it made. Make the headlines sensationally and you will have it made. Jesus resisted. The media which makes can also be the media which destroys, and so can the public whim.
Shakespeare always referred to the fickleness of the mob. Jesus, too, was praised on Palm Sunday and five days later, run out of the city and lynched on Good Friday.
Fortune - it takes a very mature head to cope with fortune. The newly rich are never without friends. The devil said to Jesus - turn the stones into bread, and people will follow you.
PUBLIC OPINION, GOD’S JUDGEMENT AND MERCY
Many people - informed and ill informed have commented publicly on Alec, his life and his lifestyle over the past few days. It has been a media-fest fed by a public which turns and, often like a shoal of piranha fish, from one personality to another. Since Alex’s death many have been judgmental despite the fact that there are few Irish families that I know of who don’t have their own ‘character’ to cope with in the family system. The only difference being that their character was not quite so famous.
I also believe in judgement. I believe that each of us, myself included, will one day stand before the God who gave us life, and each of us will have to give an account of what we have done and what we have left undone when we should have acted. This central tenet of the Jewish and Christian faiths is upheld in both the Old and New Testaments and it is in the earliest of the Christian Creeds - our statements of belief.
This I do know: The God before whom I will stand, and before whom Alec has already stood, is a God of infinite justice and a God of immense compassion. He is the God of love who sent Jesus to save us from ourselves and to show us what God himself is like. God’s love in Jesus was such that Christ went to the Cross for us - not because we are saints, but because we are sinners.
No one knows what passes between a man or a woman and God in their last minutes of life. But the compassion of God is for me shown most superbly in a statement and a story told by Jesus.
Jesus said there was always great joy in heaven when one sinner repented of any wrong he or she had done. And the God in whom I believe and trust, is the one whom Jesus spoke of in a story - he is the God who runs to meet us when we are at the end of our tether, and we decide to come home seeking acceptance and forgiveness.
When things turned sour for ‘Higgy’ he came home, to the city in which he was born, to the place in which he was raised, to where he didn’t have to say who he was.
I believe that each of us needs to make a home-coming when we come to our senses and realise that we have fouled things up - and that home-coming is to a God who runs towards us to meet us on our homeward path - not with words of condemnation, but with tears of happiness in the divine eyes, and arms outstretched in welcome and forgiveness. It is my prayer today that Alex, ‘Sandy’, made that journey - and that all of us will make it too.
There is a final frame for all of us to play in the serious game of life and eternity. It is the shot that we must not miscue.
ENDS
Reading: The son who returned
Hymn following the Dean’s Address: Amazing Grace
=========================
Issued on behalf of the Dean of Belfast by the Church of Ireland Press Office:
Houston McKelvey
[email protected]
Dean of Belfast
Belfast Cathedral
Donegall Street
Belfast BT1 2HB
Tel - 028 9032 8332
Mob - 07802207825
www.belfastcathedral.org