Pastor's Pen - June 25, 2017

We hope for many things, of course, but basically we place our hope in God, the pope says, because we have faith in God. What we hope God will do is give us the gift of eternal life.

Christian people would usually not take exception to this, but the Holy Father is aware that many Catholics and other Christians live in secularized cultures and struggle in their own souls with the questions their culture puts to them. He acknowledges that many people desire to extend their life here rather than hope for eternal life with God, which can seem unattractive and unimaginatively tedious to hearts untouched by love for God. The pope notes as well that some consider Christian hope to be individualistic, allowing people to escape from shared concern for this present world.

In contrast with Christian hope, modern hope has faith in human progress, which means using reason to achieve perfect freedom here for oneself and others. Pope Benedict reminds us, however, that it is the false utopian dreams of our age that have caused human beings untold suffering.

As Savior of the world, Jesus did not intend to have his followers abandon the world but to transform it and bring it with them into eternal union with him. Christmas brings the promise of peace on earth and not only peace in heaven. The condition of peace is union with Christ, who brings us into loving union with all whom he loves.

How do we learn to "live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me?" (Gal 2:20). The pope suggests three ways of learning to hope. First of all, prayer is a school of hope. When everything seems hopeless and one can no longer talk to anyone else, one can always talk to God. In extended and earnest prayer, our capacity for receiving God is expanded and purified.

Secondly, we need hope in order to act, to work in this world. Only the certitude that comes from hope enables us to keep acting in the face of repeated failures. Hope gives us courage to persevere, especially in facing suffering. Suffering brings despair, unless it leads to a growth in maturity that enables us to join other sufferers on a journey that puts goodness, truth and justice ahead of individual well-being and safety.

Thirdly, the pope explains that judgment teaches us how to hope. When judgment only prompts protest, whether against God or a government or corporation or the church or another person, the world remains stuck in its own sense of justice. Hope dies. God’s judgment, however, both exposes our compromises with evil and strengthens our openness to love. Opening ourselves daily to God’s judgment increases our hopefulness.

These three paths to deeper hope in our lives can shape our life together this Advent. The papal encyclical is full of beautiful reflections and is based on the Holy Father’s reading of Scripture and of human history, but basically the pope is asking us to read our own lives in the light of our faith in God’s promises.