Fr. David J. BarnesPastor · St. Patrick

Pastoral Message: On Hope

The other morning I was reading an essay by a very erudite and masterful spiritual writer named bishop Erik Varden from Norway. Something he wrote really struck me. He was speaking about how the present culture desperately desires hope and that, because of this desire for hope, the culture often tries to provide imitations of hope. The line that struck me was this: "Yet hope cannot be decreed as strategy. It must be born."

There is a temptation in all of us to manufacture hope with a command. "Everything will be fine. It will all work out." That is not hope. That is just wishful thinking. Instead of instilling hope, manufactured imitations merely mask the hopelessness. We all know from experience that everything does not always work out the way we wish. Does that mean that in those situations there is no hope?

This is why hope "must be born," not decreed or manufactured. True hope is something that enters into the world (into our heart) and takes root and grows almost imperceptibly. It is something that awakens in the heart and is able to grow in the midst of hardship, frailty, and darkness. True hope does not deny or gloss over the pain that is present in one's heart. In every human heart there is present, in some form or another, the regrets of the past, the pains of the present, and the fear of the future. Simply decreeing that "everything will be fine," is not a sufficient substitute for hope. Also, true hope is not the result of something that we construct and implement. Just as artificial intelligence is not "life," so artificial attempts to replicate hope fall short.

Hope is rather something that springs up in the midst of the harshness of the surroundings. If the meteorologist came on the television and decreed, "Winter is now over," it would do little to satisfy us. We would look out our window on March 22nd and it would still be cold, dark, and snowy perhaps. But, when we see those first greens beginning to push up from the earth, even though all around us there is still present the harsh realities of winter, our hearts are already beginning to live as though summer were here.

In each one of us there are still the effects of the winter. To deny or to ignore this, or to decree it to be otherwise, is not in conformity with what we know to be true. The Church, instead, seeks to be a sign of hope in the midst of these realities. When we live the friendship of the Church together, something begins to awaken in our hearts and begins to grow, even in the midst of our afflictions. This is what hope is.

When the dawn begins to break, it does so while the darkness still surrounds us. In those moments, we live differently. We live in the full expectation that what has only just begun will indeed come to fulfillment. Hope helps us here and now, relying upon God's strength, to seek an arduous but possible good. Hope exists in, what one hymn refers to as, the valley of tears.

Manufactured hope tries to compel us to believe what we know deep down to be untrue. True hope always seems to surprise us. It is born of a certain simplicity. For example, I see a parishioner in her nineties showing up for Mass on Sunday. Unexpectedly, I am surprised by hope. Her witness awakens something in me and I think, "Christ is true." Or, I see a young person who somehow–in the midst of today's culture–has encountered Christ and is striving toward living as Christ's disciple. This awakens a deeper hope in me. It is not something I give myself. Instead, Christ's Presence at work in these persons awakens within me a deeper certitude.

What we live together does not offer a quick fix to every broken heart. Instead, what I see in our life together is that–even in the midst of this world's real travails–we are already beginning to live in that New Creation that Christ came to establish. When I look at all of you and see you striving to grow in holiness, living together in friendship in Christ, and loving one another, I see the signs of that New Creation, the New Day. When we allow Christ into our lives and we live together as his friends, something surprisingly new, alive, and indomitable begins to grow in our midst. That is hope.

Your Brother in Christ,

Fr. David Barnes