Hope in God
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all
- Emily Dickinson
When I think back to the poetry we studied in school not much of it I remember, perhaps because I didn’t appreciate it for what it was or care to look more deeply behind the words. However, one thing that did stand out to me about it all was that of the ‘extremes’ of human emotion that the poets expressed - the utter fascination with the beauty of nature or the complete devastation in the face of death and illness - that is, both the joys and sorrows of life … the light and shade as it were.
If we think about it more deeply, shade only exists where there is something blocking the light. And, if there were no shade, we would not appreciate the light that is beside it. Much like an artist who starts by marking out the shadows of a sketch and then finishes by highlighting the brightest areas of the object, the beauty of the whole cannot be seen without both light and dark.
When a poet can find the joy in suffering or the beauty in destruction, this is a sort of expression of hope on their part, a belief that not all is lost, which I always find so moving. Similarly, in Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl concluded that the prisoners that survived the Nazi concentration camps were those that had a clear life’s purpose, a reason to live (whether that be their family, their life’s work, a belief in a God who loved them) … which gave them hope amidst such devastating suffering and loss.
Light in darkness
Hope is always seen as a sort of light in the midst of the darkness, a real tangible image that we are reminded of each time we step into a church where our Lord is present. You see people pausing at statues to light their candles and quietly praying their intentions in their hearts … and while they go about their day this candle remains lit as an extension of their prayer. St Josemaría reminds us “Acts of Faith, Hope and Love are valves which provide an outlet for the fire of those souls that live the life of God.” - The Way
As we move through the season of Advent and seek to prepare our hearts for the Lord’s coming, it is worth reflecting on what we are hoping for in this season precisely, but also in our lives as a whole. What gives my life meaning? This is a time to really pray about the answer for us right now whatever stage of life we find ourselves in.
Hope in God
In a period of guided prayer during the recent Beloved retreat, the priest mentioned the importance of hope in the Christian’s life, as he noted, for the non-believer, there is no hope … (no hope in God).
Pope Benedict XVI said -
“If time is not filled by a present endowed with meaning … expectation risks becoming unbearable; if one expects something but at a given moment there is nothing, in other words, if the present remains empty, every instant that passes appears extremely long and waiting becomes too heavy a burden because the future remains completely uncertain. On the other hand, when time is endowed with meaning and at every instant, we perceive something specific and worthwhile, it is then that the joy of expectation makes the present more precious.”
‘When time is endowed with meaning and at every instant, we perceive something specific and worthwhile’ … what a beautiful idea. That at every moment in our lives we can choose to find the meaning behind it. Like the poets before us who found beauty in nature or the camp survivors who found meaning in suffering, we too can find hope in our lives. Let us make this sincere resolution, as St Josemaría urges us, “to have faith in God always; to hope in God always; to love God always… he never abandons us”.