“Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope." –Pope Benedict XVI
So often, joy is the virtue associated with Christmas (more on joy in Week 3). But ponder for a moment this definition of Hope.
Hope is a gift from God by which we trust in Jesus Christ, that He will keep His promises and help us through difficulties on our journey to Heaven. The virtue of hope responds to the desire for happiness which God has placed in the heart of every person. Hope, which is not merely optimism, never disappoints.
There is no doubt that hope is easily lost in these uncertain and turbulent times.
This is true especially today because of the cultural milieu in which we find ourselves.
“The driving cultural force of that form of life we call ‘modern’ is the desire to make the world controllable.” —Dr. Hartmut Rosa, sociologist and author, The Uncontrollability of the World
There is no better description of our culture than that of trying to control the world, driven as it is by a heavy reliance on “science” and the rapid development and deployment of new technology.
From dating apps designed to help you find the perfect mate to diets, supplements, or exercises designed to give you a perfectly healthy and attractive body, we are more lonely and unhealthy than ever—at least in the West. We have access to more information and research than ever before, with Large Language Models (LLMs) capable of finding and summarizing an enormous amount of data. Still, we are lost in this ocean of information with no consensus on how to determine what it means to be human or even what the “common good” could possibly mean.
It seems that for all the hope and promise of science, from the Enlightenment until now, all of us are more anxious, unsettled, and confused. We are, in fact, living in uncertain times.
Hope as a human virtue can give us confidence in our ability to solve problems, to believe that growth and change for the good are possible, and that uncertainty is not necessarily a harbinger of doom. But why should we embrace uncertainty?
Let’s stick with Dr.Rosa’s reflection:
Yet it is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world – only then do we feel touched, moved and alive. A world that is fully known, in which everything has been planned and mastered, would be a dead world.
Said another way, there needs to be an openness to uncertainty. It can be an uncomfortable feeling, but it is not unmanageable discomfort. This openness, this curiosity, is in fact the driving force behind all scientific discovery. As Jacob Bronowski states in his 1970’s documentary, “The Ascent of Man”:
Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. [And it] only works because we are capable of seeking and finding the truth. —(emphasis added) Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, S. 1 E 11 “Knowledge or Certainty”
This capacity is the source of our hope. The human person is capable of knowing and discovering what is true about reality, the universe (and all that is in it), from the tiniest particles to the vast and distant galaxies. There is true hope in that! But scientific “truth,” as we know it, changes with new discoveries, which may, in turn, lead to the development of new models of how the universe works. Dr. Michael Cherney, a physicist from Creighton University, states it this way:
The best models are those that fit well with the existing data and can provide hypotheses that can be replicated. Truth–knowledge of our reality–is, in turn, viewed as dynamic and fluid. New discoveries are expected to change the way we think and interact with the world. A physicist who from time to time fundamentally changes his or her mind on how data are interpreted and what is the path to follow is not considered to be a “flip-flopper” but instead this person is considered to be rational.
Sometimes, this idea of the “fluid” nature of scientific truth makes “trusting science” seem like a dicey proposition. Often, as mentioned earlier, we are uncomfortable with uncertainty–we desire a stable fund of information on which to base our everyday decisions and guide our larger life choices. This is understandable, but it is not unmanageable once we learn to trust the process, ourselves, and our God-given capacity to know and understand all of God’s creation. This understanding includes us in all of our relationships with communities, both local, national, and international. Is it perfect? No! We will make mistakes! And that is why we so desperately need hope–but not a hope based solely on the power of the human intellect and will, but on the Person Who chose to enter His own creation, to be with us, to share in our uncertainty and pain, and Who acts as a trusted Guide on our journey back to the Heavenly Father.
“The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah.” —Jeremiah 33:14
The words of our first reading from the book of Jeremiah on this First Sunday of Advent are words of hope. Jeremiah speaks of a promise and of that promise finally being fulfilled. The people of Israel had been waiting for centuries for this promise to be fulfilled, and since Jeremiah was writing in the 6th century BC, they still had centuries more to wait. And yet, Jeremiah’s message is clearly one of hope: “In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land. In those days, Judah shall be safe, and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.” The Messiah that had been foretold will finally bring peace and security to the people of Israel. This is the reason for their hope and the cause of their joy. They had no idea what was to come with the birth of Christ, but they knew they could hope in the Lord to fulfill his promise.
May we be filled with the same hope this Advent season as we await the coming of Christ at Christmas, at His second coming, and into our hearts through grace.
Just as the prophet Jeremiah spoke words of hope to a waiting Israel, Science, Reason, and Faith: Discovering the Bible by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, offers hope to a modern world longing for clarity and unity amidst the apparent divide between science, reason, and faith. In this award-winning book, Fr. Spitzer reminds us that the fulfillment of God’s promises is not confined to the past but continues to unfold in our understanding of creation, truth, and ourselves.
The Advent season calls us to prepare for the coming of Christ—at Christmas, in his second coming, and into our hearts. Similarly, this book invites us to rediscover Christ at the intersection of science, reason, and faith. Built into our very nature is a longing to seek answers to life’s greatest questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Fr. Spitzer draws us into the profound mystery of a God who meets us in this search, revealing himself through creation, Scripture, and the Incarnation.
Science, Reason, and Faith: Discovering the Bible challenge the notion that these realms are incompatible, instead showing that their integration is a path to truth—a truth that is not just knowledge but the person of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of every promise. This Advent, let this book be a beacon of hope, guiding us to a deeper understanding of the One who is both Creator and Redeemer.