Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - Aujourd'hui 04:03

Reflections on hope

FR MARTIN SIRJU THE QUESTION has been on my mind since the Jubilee Year began in December 2024. In the Catholic Church it comes every 25 years and the last one just ended (December 28) in most of the dioceses of the Catholic world, except in Rome when it ends on January 6, 2026. It carried as its main theme, “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5). Applied to the complexity and unpredictability of life, the quotation fails miserably. Hopes are often shattered. So the question must be asked: what is hope? I turned to my life experiences and some Western philosophers to try to answer this question which is both philosophical and theological in nature. French existentialist writer Gabriel Marcel gives us some useful insights to help us wrestle with this question. There are “diluted” forms of hope, he says, like “I hope my brother visits for Christmas” or “I hope it is sunny tomorrow.” This is more like a wish. Hope often has to contend with or is confused with optimism, which in the thinking of Marcel is a "firm conviction" or "vague feeling" that things will turn out for the best based on external evidence or rational calculation. This emphasis on science, evidence and calculation seems to overlap with what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “the immanent frame.” Here Taylor suggests that modern secular hope is built within an "immanent frame," where meaning is derived from human reason, nature, or inner depths. While this "exclusive humanism" has achieved great gains in promoting human values like equality and democracy, it creates a "buffered self" that can feel spiritually "stifled" or disconnected from a deeper sense of community. This “exclusive humanism” sounds very much like what is termed “created hope” – “the intentional process of generating optimism and positive future expectations often through action, belief and strategic strategies like goal setting, cognitive reframing (seeing different possibilities) or therapeutic support.” This I think is where most people are, including most Western Christians, most of whom are non-practising and are of the “I’m spiritual but not religious” camp. They will not come to church but they engage in social projects that make human living better. This is quite laudable in itself but historians like Tom Holland will argue that this is just living off the fruits of the Christian tree with deep transcendental roots. It is just that we are not aware of it for we see it as a natural part of our social ethical inheritance. I find these understandings of hope ultimately unsatisfying because I think they must be tested against the most harrowing experiences from which hope will most likely be born. I think of the Japanese people after Hiroshima, the ten million Africans forcefully transplanted through Transatlantic slavery, the people of Gaza and El Fasher, African Americans still battling structured racism, and our own murdered innocents. Those who lived survived because of belief in some kind of religious hope often giving rise to songs, not the sheer endurance of a secular hope. Human endurance, courage and persistence against evil aren’t enough comfort for me. I need to know all was not lost; I need to see concrete manifestations of victory at the end of it all. This I find only in the Christian narrative of an incarnate God. A poor man lived amidst great Roman tyranny; he was non-violent but prophetic and fearless when he had to be; his constant references to wages, labour, exploitation, injustice in his parables made him keenly aware of the oppressive might of the Caesars of this world who can order a census “for the whole world to be taken.” At the end of his life hope was certainly crushed: “Our own hope had been he would be the one to set Israel free” (Lk 24:21). Hope disappointed! What then made the difference, this sudden turn individually and communally to new life, new perspectives and unbelievable courage? In one word: resurrection. Atheists, agnostics, psychologists, religious studies scholars have tried to deconstruct the word but have by and large failed. That itinerant prophet rose from the dead with a new and gloried body and promised a new heaven and new earth to come. It will not all disappear; it will not be left to memory which will fail. It is not created hope without a transcendental reference and that divine omega point is not just about us alone but about all of creation, including all our anxieties about climate change and environmental inertia. I need a hope beyond the “buffered self,” far beyond me, for Caricom’s fragile future and our current ambivalent geopolitics; I need a hope that opens out to others and embraces a creation that moans and groans; I need a hope that ultimately will not disappoint. I find that in the beginnings of Christmas – light shimmering in the dark – and bursting out at Easter. Fr Martin Sirju is the administrator of the RC Cathedral The post Reflections on hope appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.