A Journey of Hope: Three Proposals

 In his Message for the World Day of Peace to be marked on 1st January 2025, Pope Francis makes three proposals for what he terms "a journey of hope".

... at the beginning of this Year of Grace, I would like to offer three proposals capable of restoring dignity to the lives of entire peoples and enabling them to set them out anew on the journey of hope. In this way, the debt crisis can be overcome and all of us can once more realize that we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven.

First, I renew the appeal launched by Saint John Paul II on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to consider “reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations”.  In recognition of their ecological debt, the more prosperous countries ought to feel called to do everything possible to forgive the debts of those countries that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe. Naturally, lest this prove merely an isolated act of charity that simply reboots the vicious cycle of financing and indebtedness, a new financial framework must be devised, leading to the creation of a global financial Charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.

I also ask for a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children. Without hope for the future, it becomes hard for the young to look forward to bringing new lives into the world. Here I would like once more to propose a concrete gesture that can help foster the culture of life, namely the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation. 

In addition, following in the footsteps of Saint Paul VI and Benedict XVI, I do not hesitate to make yet another appeal, for the sake of future generations. In this time marked by wars, let us use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change. We need to work at eliminating every pretext that encourages young people to regard their future as hopeless or dominated by the thirst to avenge the blood of their dear ones. The future is a gift meant to enable us to go beyond past failures and to pave new paths of peace.

The celebration of Christmas revives our hope

 In 2007, Gracewing published  a collection of monastic conferences and homilies by the then Dom Hugh Gilbert, who at the time was the Abbot of Pluscarden Abbey. It was entitled Unfolding the Mystery (a more recently published set of reflections is entitled Living the Mystery). At the beginning of a conference for Christmas Eve, Dom Gilbert asks his brethren what it is that they might with justification expect from the celebration of the coming of Christ. 

We can expect, each of us can expect - through the celebration of Christ's Adventus - a revival of our faith and our hope and our love.

In addressing the subject of hope, he indicates three ways in which the celebration of Christmas revives our hope.

[The Christ child] revives, first, the hope of a better world here and now, of a change for the good. His birth coincides with the lengthening days. It gives fresh energy in the doing of good: ordinary, daily, mundane good. It sends us out to battle once again. Our sense of it all being somehow worth it finds itself strangely rekindled by that Mother and Child.

And secondly:

[The Christ child] revives the hope, looking higher, of the Kingdom to come. He's already a fulfilment, by way of cross and resurrection, of the hopes of the Chosen People: those hopes of God reigning and idols toppling, of a new covenant, of a gather people and Gentiles converted, of a new Presence, of a new purity and inward renewal, of the forgiveness of sins, of the Messianic king. All these promises have a first, unfinished but real, fulfilment in the Church and in her saints.

He revives our hope, thirdly, personally, for heaven. In the Collect for Christmas night, we pray to "enjoy in heaven the joys of him whose luminous mysteries we celebrate on earth". The best is yet to come, for each of us. 

"Hopes" and "Hope": Syria and Afghanistan

 Watching the scenes of rejoicing from Syria, and listening to some of the hopes being expressed by Syrians in conversations with news reporters, a reflection is prompted on the exact nature of the hopes being described. It is noteworthy that, after an initial expression of joy in achieving freedom after the fall of the previous regime, some of the hopes for the future of their country have been expressed with a tinge of uncertainty and caution. There is also the sadness of those who are searching for news of relatives imprisoned or killed during the previous regime.

Towards the end of the first of his lectures published in the short book Hope and History, Josef Pieper draws attention to a distinction that an author contemporary to him had made between specific "hopes", which linguistically are linked to identifiable possibilities in worldly life, and a more "fundamental hope", that looks beyond the immediate experience of life and is sustained without connection to a specifically stated object. This latter fundamental hope is more about what a person "is" rather than what a person might "have". The distinction was initially developed in the context of incurable illness, but Pieper extends it to a wider context.

The aspect of Plugge's finding that is really worth thinking about, if also likely to surprise at first, seems to me to be his observation that true hope does not emerge and show its face until the moment when one's various "hopes" are finally disappointed.... Every deep disappointment of some hope whose object was to be found in the worldly sphere potentially harbors an opportunity for hope per se to turn ... towards its true object and, in a process of liberation, for existence to expand, for the first time ever, into an atmosphere of wider dimensions. Precisely in disappointment, and perhaps in it alone, we are offered the challenge of entering into this broader existential realm of hope per se.

 It is possible to identify at least seeds of the more fundamental idea of hope in the use by Syrians of the word "freedom" to characterise the new situation in their country. The wish for democratic elections might be seen as a hope in the more restricted sense; and there is no certainty at the moment as to whether such elections will take place, and, if they do, the extent to which they will live up to the expectation that might be placed upon them. There is an inevitable eye towards events in Afghanistan, where the news this week that women would be barred from training as nurses or midwives appears to remove a last hope for women to play any part in the public life of the country.

In both countries, we might pray that a genuine hope be sustainable against the background of specific material hopes that might not be met.

"... a yearning for the treasures of Heaven"

Pope Francis' Jubilee Prayer seems an appropriate way to mark the forthcoming Jubilee 2025 in an everyday way. A particular phrase of that prayer is perhaps relevant to the early part of the Advent season, when the liturgy encourages us to look towards the Second Coming of Christ.

May the grace of the Jubilee awaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.

A paragraph from the Bull of Indiction (n.20) echoes this phrase, suggesting that an appreciation of the gift of Baptism opens to us a perspective towards eternal life:

The reality of death, as a painful separation from those dearest to us, cannot be mitigated by empty rhetoric. The Jubilee, however, offers us the opportunity to appreciate anew, and with immense gratitude, the gift of the new life that we have received in Baptism, a life capable of transfiguring death’s drama. It is worth reflecting, in the context of the Jubilee, on how that mystery has been understood from the earliest centuries of the Church’s life. An example would be the tradition of building baptismal fonts in the shape of an octagon, as seen in many ancient baptisteries, like that of Saint John Lateran in Rome. This was intended to symbolize that Baptism is the dawn of the “eighth day”, the day of the resurrection, a day that transcends the normal, weekly passage of time, opening it to the dimension of eternity and to life everlasting: the goal to which we tend on our earthly pilgrimage (cf. Rom 6:22). 

 According to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n.387):

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire and await from God eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit to merit it and to persevere to the end of our earthly life.

"Care given to them is a hymn to human dignity"

 The following extract from Pope Francis' Bull of Indiction for the 2025 Holy Year (n.11)appears particularly relevant following Friday's vote in favour of assisted dying in the House of Commons. I have added the italics to the last sentence. I was particularly struck by its reference to the part to be played by society as a whole, in addition to that of the individuals or teams who might be immediate care givers.

Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them. Works of mercy are also works of hope that give rise to immense gratitude. Gratitude should likewise be shown to all those healthcare workers who, often in precarious conditions, carry out their mission with constant care and concern for the sick and for those who are most vulnerable.

Inclusive attention should also be given to all those in particularly difficult situations, who experience their own weaknesses and limitations, especially those affected by illnesses or disabilities that severely restrict their personal independence and freedom. Care given to them is a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope that calls for the choral participation of society as a whole.