Christmas and Hope, Julian Carron

Christmas and Hope
Letter to the editor of the Italian Daily La Repubblica,
published December 23, 2008

Dear Sir,

I was struck by the readings that the Ambrosian Liturgy proposes for Monday if the third week of Advent. How must the members of the ancient people of Israel been disconcerted at the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “It will devour your harvests and your bread; it will devour your sons and daughters; it will devour your flocks and herds; it will devour the fortified cities in which you placed your trust” (Jer 5:17). He was telling them that another nation was going to conquer the kingdom in which they had put their trust. “Then, if they say: ‘Why has the Lord our God done these things?’, you will answer: ‘Just as you have abandoned the Lord and served foreign gods in your country, so will you serve foreigners in a country that is not yours’” (Jer 5:19).

It is as if this were said for us; today we see signs that make everyone afraid, it seems that what has supported our history is unable to withstand the test of our times: one day the economy, finance and work, the next day politics and the judiciary, then the family, the beginning of life and its natural end. So, like ancient Israel before a frightening situation, we, too, ask ourselves: “Why is all this happening?” It is because we, too, have been so presumptuous as to think that we can still get along after cutting the roots that supported the foundations of our civilization. In recent centuries, our culture has believed it could build a future for itself while abandoning God. Now we see where this presumption is leading us.

Now, what does the Lord do in the face of all we have brought upon ourselves? The prophet Zechariah tells us, speaking to his people Israel: “Look, I am going to send you my servant Branch” (Zc 3:8.). Notice the name. It is as if before the crisis of a world, our world – the prophets would describe it with an image dear to them, that of a dried-up trunk – a sign of hope were springing up. The enormity of a dried up trunk cannot prevent the sprouting of a humble, fragile branch in which lies the hope for the future.

But there is one drawback: we, too, when we see this branch appearing –like those before that child in Nazareth—can be scandalized and say: “How can something so ephemeral be the answer to our need for liberation?” Can salvation come from something so small as faith in Jesus? It seems impossible that all our hope can rest on belonging to this frail sign. The promise that only from this can everything be rebuilt seems scandalous. Yet men like St. Benedict and St. Francis started from that. They began to live while belonging to that branch that had grown through time and space—the Church, and in this way became protagonists of a people and of history.

Benedict did not face the end of the Roman Empire with anger, pointing the finger at the immorality of his contemporaries, but rather witnessed to the people of his time a fullness of life, a satisfaction and a fullness that became an attraction for many. This became the dawn of a new world, small as it was (almost a nonentity compared with the whole, a whole that was in total collapse), but a real world. That new beginning was so concrete that the work of Benedict and Francis has lasted through the centuries, has transformed Europe, and humanized it.

“He has revealed himself. He personally,” said Benedict XVI, speaking of the God-with-us. Fr. Giussani told us, “That man of two thousand years ago is hidden under the tent, under the appearance of a new humanity,” in a real sign that arouses the inkling of that life that we are all waiting for so as not to succumb to the evil in us and to the signs of the nothingness which is advancing. This is the hope that Christmas announces to us, and that makes us cry out: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Julián Carrón

Building on Hope

Earlier this week in preparation for the holidays, Slate.Com offered an amusing little piece on what to say during those inevitable political arguments which come up during family gatherings. I'm always reminded of James Joyce's story "The Dead" and how little the disputes connect with what is really important, something that becomes clear by the climax of the story. Anyway, the article, "Ammunition for Settling--or Starting--Holiday Political Spats" offered a tongue-in-cheek debunking of cherished ideologies by showing how both sides are simultaneously right and wrong. Whether intentional or not, it was quite the post-election, mid-economic crisis piece to display the absurdity of the usual polarities.

The issue of Traces (Vol. 10 No. 9 2008) which just arrived is the perfect antidote to our necessary disillusionment with ideologies and offers a direction for our irrepressible desire for justice and the common good.

Economist Giorgio Vittadini in "Crisis Underscores the Reduction of the Human" writes about the need to build an economy which is for the whole person and not just profits.

The point is to admit that this is not just an economic crisis. It is an anthropological crisis that calls into question a human idea of reduced rationality, tending as it does to the maximization of short-term profits, but inattentive to the principles essential to create a real and lasting affluence. Hence, it is doomed to be cut off from reality and has built a virtual world that will fatally collapse. To look ahead, we need a rationality that reveals how even now Homo oeconomicus has other much greater motives than just quarterly profits unrelated to society. We need a healthy realism that will anchor finance firmly to the real economy, of which it is and must be only an instrument. From this point of view, after having demonized many aspects of the economic system, it is perhaps necessary to reappraise some, such as its close ties to the territory and its concern for the real economy, which is one of its riches that is not yet extinct.

Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete reflects on how the problem of hope makes more clear our need for God and introduces the next book by Fr. Luigi Giussani which we will be working on for School of Community titled Is It Possible to Live This Way?: Hope.

The “knowledge” sustaining modern hope has come from one or another ideology of progress: a political ideology, a scientific one (including so-called scientifically conceived politics that recognize the true structure of history and society), a philosophical system, etc. Yet, again and again, these ideologies show their inability to fulfill our hopes, and hope is increasingly being replaced by a stoic resignation approaching total hopelessness. This was precisely the situation in the culture encountered by the first Christians when they left Palestine and arrived in the great cities of the Roman Empire. Today, we must respond to it as they did. For this to happen, Pope Benedict says, it is necessary to undertake a “self-critique of modern Christianity” by returning to its “roots.”

Then the editorial of the issue asks the direct question: "Got Hope?"

At such an important time in our history, we cannot shy away from proclaiming the only true hope: the encounter with Jesus Christ. And this proclamation does not entail a flight from the world of politics, economics, culture, or justice–in other words, this proclamation does not entail a flight from the world. On the contrary, the hope afforded by the encounter with Christ is that which has most radically transformed life on this earth. As Pope Benedict recently reminded great figures from the world of culture in France, Christian monasticism gave rise to our civilization, without any pretense of a cultural project. We know that hospitals, orphanages, the concept of human rights, science, and polyphonic music all have their roots in that life built on the hope given by the encounter with Jesus Christ.

It would be easy at the point of disillusionment to retreat from active engagement into pietism. Instead, we are called to a great fraternal work born from a reasonable hope based on the person of Christ Incarnate living among us.

Have mercy on us, Victor King

I would point readers to two remarkable posts by Suzanne, brimming with life, death, sorrow — and an intense mercy.

April fools!
April fools (continued)

A Witness

I share this story of Vicky's, who shared it with us. From Traces. There is nothing to add to this witness. This is simply the way to live.

There will be a Rhythm 'n' Soul Benefit Concert in New York on January 19th which will take place at the Cooper Union Great Hall. The proceeds from this event will be used by AVSI for the HIV/AIDS project "Meeting Point Kitgum" in Uganda, the center that was available to Vicky.

My name is Vicky. I am 42 and I come from the eastern region of Uganda. I
want to thank you and God for the precious life that He has given me. In 1992,
when I found out I was pregnant with Brian, my last child, my husband gave me
the choice of giving up the pregnancy and remaining his wife, or separating from
him if I wanted to keep the child. At the time, I only had two children, and I
decided to carry on with the pregnancy, a choice that marked the end of my
relationship with him. I truly couldn’t understand why he was so cruel and
unyielding. Then, in 1997, when I lost my job because of sickness and, at the
same time, my son Brian manifested the initial symptoms of tuberculosis, I began
to have my first suspicions. The next year, I got worse. In the Nsambiya
hospital, I was examined and tested for AIDS, and showed up HIV-positive. That
was when I understood why my husband hadn’t wanted the pregnancy with Brian,
because back then he had known that he was HIV-positive.

Life at home with my three children became even more difficult. The two
older boys were healthy, but we didn’t have enough money for school. We didn’t
have food or money for medicine and, worst of all, we didn’t have love from
anyone anywhere in the world. I really didn’t know whether God existed. In 2001,
someone directed me to the International Meeting Point, where I encountered
women with such joy on their faces, even though they too were sick with AIDS,
that I found it hard to believe. They danced and were glad, and I wondered how
anyone with this disease could sing and dance. At the Meeting Point, they
welcome all with music and songs from different peoples–African, European, and
Indian; I even heard some from my own tribe. After a long time, I began to see a
glimmer of light shining on my ruined life, so I continued spending time with
them.“An important thing I’ll never forget is the day someone looked at me with
a gaze shining with hope and love. In all the time I was bedridden, all my
friends, relatives, and even neighbors looked at me and my children with
rejection and contempt. This gaze of love and hope showed me something that
brought life to my spirit and my ruined body. It told me, ‘Vicky! You have a
value, and your value is greater than the weight of your sickness, greater than
death."

In 2002, I began buying medicine for my child, who was on the verge of
death, after taking him out of school because of the seal of discrimination
they’d set on him: they’d nicknamed him ‘skeleton.’ In 2003, I began buying
medicine for myself as well. I weighed 99 pounds, and now I weigh 165. Now Brian
is truly healthy, and has begun going back to high school. My oldest son is
attending the university, and the second is in the fourth year of high school.
Where is the power of death? It is in the loss of hope and the lack of love. Now
I am a volunteer at the Meeting Point, and every time I receive people I tell
them that the value of life is greater than that of the virus they carry within
their bodies. This affirmation nurtures the hope of people who are suffering and
about to die, and brings them back to life. All these results have been possible
because I have taken on the garment of something beyond death–in particular,
love. I want to thank all the people who have educated us, even if we’ve never
met them in person. Today, in the name of Fr. Giussani, Fr. Carrón has come
among us, who were poor and forgotten. Who is richer than us now? We are the
richest people in the world, because someone has brought a smile to the face of
at least one person.

The heart of Spe Salvi

Spe Salvi draws repeatedly on Hebrews 10-11, so you may want to review these chapters before or after reading the encyclical, especially Hebrews 11:1. It's a bit daunting to read in its entirety, but thankfully, Pope Benedict XVI has summarized the core of the encyclical for us. I've emphasized some key points by using a larger type font here.

«30. Let us summarize what has emerged so far in the course of our reflections. Day by day, man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives. When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain. In this regard our contemporary age has developed the hope of creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable. Thus Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real “Kingdom of God”. This seemed at last to be the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of galvanizing—for a time—all man's energies. The great objective seemed worthy of full commitment. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly receding. Above all it has become apparent that this may be a hope for a future generation, but not for me.

And however much “for all” may be part of the great hope — since I cannot be happy without others or in opposition to them — it remains true that a hope that does not concern me personally is not a real hope. It has also become clear that this hope is opposed to freedom, since human affairs depend in each generation on the free decisions of those concerned. If this freedom were to be taken away, as a result of certain conditions or structures, then ultimately this world would not be good, since a world without freedom can by no means be a good world. Hence, while we must always be committed to the improvement of the world, tomorrow's better world cannot be the proper and sufficient content of our hope. And in this regard the question always arises: when is the world “better”? What makes it good? By what standard are we to judge its goodness? What are the paths that lead to this “goodness”?

31. Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life. Let us now, in the final section, develop this idea in more detail as we focus our attention on some of the “settings” in which we can learn in practice about hope and its exercise.»

The three settings for learning hope, which present a practical guide:

1. Prayer
2. Action and Suffering
3. Judgment