by Sister Anne Henehan
I came across a famous quote by Desmond Tutu the other day that I love: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” As our Advent season comes to a close and we move into Christmas and its days of joy, I think a reflection on hope is quite what we need.
Everyone hopes. I love the all-inclusive nature of hope; it is not bound by religion or skill, by age, race, gender or any other limiting characteristics. It is “to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true” (The Britannica Dictionary). I believe that a prerequisite for hoping is, as Reverend Tutu states above, the being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness surrounding us.
And what darkness there is! States of war abound in countries that do not make the worldwide news, in addition to the places that come to mind easily: Gaza and Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan and Haiti. Lack of access to resources such as adequate food, shelter, and clean water exist within the biggest cities in the richest countries, as well as in the world’s least developed countries.
When people hope it is always very personal, local and deeply heartfelt: Please keep the bombs away from our street; please let my child not be killed in school or on the way home; please let my daughter’s cancer heal; please, please help my son seek help for his addiction; please help the money stretch so my children can eat till the end of the month. We could go on and on. And in every case, a person is opening their heart to God and the universe pleading for what they believe could be true and that could happen. They’ve been seeing that match lit in the blackness, the candle flickering down a dark narrow way.
Everyone hopes. In our Christian tradition, we couple hope with faith. We weave hope into our family and community circles. Our circles of faith widen and deepen our hope and nourish and nurture it. We ourselves, through our prayer, strengthen our hope by our belief that God hears our petitions and pleas and will answer them in God’s own Kairos time.
As Christmas comes upon us, we have just finished our season of Advent, weeks of waiting in hope and accompaniment with Mary and Joseph, seeking the Light to come into our darkness. Now, we celebrate Jesus as God coming into our world, a tiny human baby, vulnerable, needing care and tender nurturing. As Mary and Joseph tenderly guided Jesus into his life, can we not also nurture each other on our life paths? Our hope then would be not only for ourselves but also for our entire Earth: our cities, states, countries, rivers and seas, and all the beings within Her. We hope in prayer for non-violence, the dawning of peace, for actions that pursue clean air, clean water, and the ability to thrive, for all people.
Our Christmas hope, then, is all-encompassing. With the dawning of the New Year in 2025, we enter the Jubilee year set forth by Pope Francis, as Pilgrims of Hope. We are pilgrims and we carry our hope within and all around us as go forth into our days, our routines, and all our encounters with other children of God.
Hope is our enduring light. When we are able to see the light, as tiny and flickering as it may be, we can believe that it will conquer the darkness, even a little bit at a time.
May your Christmas be as full of light as it can be, filling you with hope for our world.