Stories of Hope

We all know the role hope plays in our life and especially when we are  in difficult situations and the outcome is unknown – we can only ‘believe’ that whatever is going to happen will be favourable to us. Therefore, prayer and trust in God are so indispensable to our Christian life if we are personally related to Christ in whose death and resurrection we participate.

Recently I heard a very moving story of invincible hope born out of love that happened during the massive earthquake that devastated the northern region of Armenia in 1988 killing nearly 30,000 people. In that earthquake an elementary school with several hundred children in it came crashing down burying the children beneath the rubble. Rescue operations began almost immediately after the earthquake struck. Some children were brought out of the rubble alive, but most of the children were found dead under the stones.

However, one father of a boy – Arman was the boy’s name - hoped beyond doubt that his little son was alive under the ruins. He loved his son so much that he couldn’t believe that his son was dead. He had often told him as he left school every morning, “son, God will take care of you and I will be there for you any time you need me”. The doting dad raced to the school driven by the promise he had made to his son. He knew the area of his son’s classroom and the spot where his son sat. With unflagging hope in his heart and defying all odds and particularly the official despondency which was shared by many parents, he went on digging with his bare hands, lifting stone after stone shouting, ‘Arman’, ‘Arman’ at the top of his voice; and to his immense joy, after thirty-six hours of mighty efforts, fighting hunger and exhaustion, he heard the son’s voice beneath the rubble, ‘Abba, it’s me’. Arman was alive and along with him thirteen other boys of his class were also alive. Arman was certain that his loving Abba would not allow him to die and that he would leave no stone unturned to rescue him. With this confidence he kept up the hope of his thirteen companions. It was indeed a miracle of faith, hope and love. 

If such is the power of human love how infinitely greater is the power of God’s love for us in Christ – love that led Jesus Christ to the cross for our sake because “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

We remember some such miracle that took place in Uttarakhand in November 2023 when a tunnel under construction collapsed trapping all the forty-one labourers inside. They were rescued through a pipe after a 17-day ordeal during which hopes were waxing and waning but the power of prayer and complete trust in God finally prevailed over all human odds. It was indeed a miracle of hope.

We hear of such miracles in different parts of the world and, on a smaller scale, each one of us will be able to testify to such miracles of hope in our own individual lives when we have been rescued from situations of utter ‘hopelessness’ by the miraculous intervention of God.

Hope of Eternal Life

Nevertheless, as we can easily conclude, the above-mentioned testimonies of hope are within the confines of our contingent world.

The word of God speaks to us of another hope: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).  This pertains to eternal life which is of much greater value than everything that this world can give us. This is the pearl of great value to gain which we are ready to forgo everything (Mathew 13:45-46) because, in the gift of ‘wisdom’ which the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us, we know what is transient and what is everlasting.

In fact, we may not even receive what we are intensely praying and hoping for as an ‘earthly blessing’, but that suffering itself is definitely God’s way of purifying us and preparing us for eternal life, to receive that “treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Mathew 6:20), and indeed our heart has to be on this treasure.

To hope for eternal life and the coming of God’s Kingdom in its fulness is the identity of the Church and the essence of her mission. We were saved in this hope and our hope will never disappoint us because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). This is the mystery of Christ that informs our life from the day of Baptism; therefore St. Paul could exclaim with full confidence: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8: 35-37). Remember these words of our Lord: “I have said all these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).  

When all kinds of sufferings come our way tempting us to lose courage, be gloomy and despondent and especially when our faith and Christian witness are severely tested, we must enter more deeply into the word of God that never fails us. The word of God is truth and It is our source of strength. It is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119: 105).         

Jubilee Year 2025 – We are Pilgrims of Hope

As the calendar year 2024 draws to a close we are going to enter into the Jubilee Year 2025 with its theme, ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. Hope is a theological virtue inextricably related to faith and love, but fulfilled in love as St. Paul affirms, “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).  

If this world alone were all that mattered to life our Lord  Jesus Our Lord would never have shunned all the temptations of the devil in the desert; he would never have spoken to us of the kingdom of God and of repentance and self-denial in order to enter this kingdom; he would never have proclaimed eternal life as our true destiny; he would never have placed before us the mystery of the cross which is the path the Son of Man had chosen; he would never have given us the ‘new commandment’ of loving one another just as he has loved us; in short there would not be any need for the Gospel.       

As St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him ... Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it y own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press o toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3: 7-14).  

The beautiful parables of the Kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed speak of hope as an expectant and patient waiting as well as an arduous working. We have to work for the Kingdom of God to manifest itself in our human society and wait expectantly for its full flowering. This is the sum and substance of the only prayer Christ has taught us, the  ‘Our Father’. And Christ himself, who went about teaching, healing every disease and every affliction among the people, forgiving sinners and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom  is our model par excellence. In his death and resurrection, the devil and sin and death itself were defeated and the victory of God’s Kingdom established once and for all. Because of the resurrection we do not doubt that God’s Kingdom will come and with Mary our Blessed Mother we sing the ‘Magnificat’.

The Jubilee Year is a time to renew our lives in the light of the Holy Spirit with utter sincerity with God, with ourselves and with others.

Becoming Signs of Hope

In his ‘Bull of Indiction’ in preparation for the Jubilee Year 2025 (May 09, 2024), the Holy Father Pope Francis presents several tangible ways by which we can be ‘signs of hope’ in our broken world:

1. Desiring and working for peace in the world in the face of the tragedy of war.

2. Reaching out to our brothers and sisters in prison, who are suffering hardships and deprived of their freedom and dignity.

3. Tending to the sick whether at home or in hospital.

4. Caring for the migrants who leave their homeland in search of better life for themselves and for their families. 

5. Caring for the elderly who feel lonely and abandoned.

6. Opening our eyes to the plight of the poor, the homeless and the impoverished people who have to suffer hunger and deprivation despite the immense resources of the earth.

7. Demonstrating our special care and concern for the young who are the very embodiment of hope.

There could be many more ways by which we give an account of the hope that is in us, as St. Peter exhorts us:

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” (1Peter 3: 13-17).