A Message Of Hope For The World :

(January 2008)

Before Christmas Pope Benedict XVI published his second encyclical letter. As in the case of his first letter about Love, the topic of his second letter was surprising to many.

He called it “In hope we are saved”. It was time he felt for the Christian family to reflect on God’s gift of hope. In this letter the Pope discusses the qualities of hope. He distinguishes between the everyday hopes or expectations which we all share. However, even though such hope is essential for the human family, it has a fallible quality.

Human hopes are often unfulfilled and therefore a source of disappointment and frustration. The hope which comes from God, which he calls ‘the great hope’, is qualitatively different because it flows from God’s love for the human family, revealed and accomplished in the saving acts of Christ. These open the way into an eternal life of love with God, which will satisfy all human longing.

Fr Perry Gildea - Vincentian Fathers

Cliftonville Road, Belfast 15

The key to knowing such hope is faith in Christ as the Redeemer of the human family. This faith is not an abstract knowledge of who and what God is and does, but a personal experience of the love of God made real in the sacraments, revealed in the Scriptures, the Liturgy and the life of the Church.

St Vincent de Paul in Glory

That includes the life of all those who share faith in Jesus – all those who make up the Body of Christ in this world. The heart of the mystery of hope is God’s infinite and compassionate love for all. One of the gifts of this hope is an awareness of God’s concern for justice.

The greatest frustrations of human hope come from the huge failures of justice, which have and continue to destroy the expectations of so many of the world’s population. Pope Benedict asserts that ultimately divine hope promises that all such injustices will be addressed. But what of the now?

If the family of believers carries the message of hope for humanity it cannot do so only in words. It must also make hope a credible and visible reality. This can only mean that all those who know and believe in the redeeming love of God are passionate about justice too. They must be the voice of the speechless, the victimised, the ill treated, all those disempowered by unjust structures anywhere. But that is a global commitment. Most of us do not have a global voice.

Injustice is also a local affair. The Vincentian is called to the service of the poor and since the days of Ozanam this has contained the challenge to be aware of the injustices suffered by the poor where we are, and to be the voice that cries out on their behalf. With this concern we too become living signs of hope for the human family.

Fr Perry (January 2008)

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