“What the world needs now is love, sweet love!” —it’s an old song and still quite true, but it seems to me also that what the world needs now is Hope.
“Our hope is in God who loved us and sent his Son to redeem us,” Pope Benedict XVI says in his encyclical, “Spe Salvi” God is ultimately the foundation of our hope and the One who can be trusted to keep his promises.
Christians must be persons of Hope, carriers of Hope. It is too easy to look at the war, violence, hunger, poverty and disease in our world and to want to give up in despair–or treat it like some do global warming–something that doesn’t exist, or if it does, to explain that these conditions are just cycles we pass through.
Signs of distress do exist: hunger/famine, the AIDS pandemic, lack of education and health care, homelessness, racism, senseless violence, abuse, severe poverty, the cost of war–in lives and dollars... We cannot deny that they are all around us if we open our eyes.
In our society, we find many today seeking material prosperity through consumerism or self-aggrandizement. At the same time, however we see others who are seeking “meaning” in their lives by turning or returning to religion/spirituality for an inner life and a connection to God. We need to see this spiritual hunger as a sign of Hope.
We each can be a sign of Hope by living our faith and welcoming the seekers. (St. Benedict says in his Rule that we are all seekers, beginners and learners on the Christian path.)
Here are some ways I think each of us can seek to be a sign of Hope:
*Counter the difficulties, disunity and injustice of our time with a positive attitude & good actions
*Pray instead of getting discouraged or worrying
*Do something to solve a problem –don’t complain about it
*Love people and use things (Note. not love things and use people)
It is through our words, and especially our actions, that we will be carriers of Hope. What we say and do infects and affects others’ words and actions for better or worse.
People of prayer are persons of Hope. Prayer nourishes and makes grow the seeds of Hope God has planted within us. In our difficult times there is a special need for prayer and finding our strength, our Hope in God.
“May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope” Rom. 15:13
In the course of history and to the present, many have become witnesses to the importance of prayer by giving themselves wholly to the praise of God and the life of prayer/service in monasteries. If you feel called to give prayer first place and to seek a renewal of your spiritual life, visit Holy Name Monastery, St. Leo, FL– become a carrier of Hope. Come for a few days or a lifetime.
See http://www.floridabenedictines.com/ for varied ways to share Benedictine life: Retreatant, Volunteer, Oblate, vowed Sister
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