Optional Memorial of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
This is the refrain to today’s Psalm and the focus of the following reflection. (For a fuller treatment of today’s gospel passage, you might look in your e-mail archives to August 18 of this year, where this contributor offered some thoughts on struggles within families and true peace that comes from God.)
To hope in the Lord, to place everything and everyone we hold dear into the loving hands of our Father, is not easy. It’s not really a one-time act but a life-long disposition, that comes through a committed, personal prayer life with God.
If times are tough in the company, in the economy, in the home, in my relationships, am I able to take a step back, with a God’s-eye view, to put things into true perspective, to see things from the viewpoint of the Guardian of my life and the lives of all humankind, throughout history?
In the Exercises, Ignatius, and I paraphrase here with a little more contemporary language, marvels at how we’re not all just zapped out of existence and how God continues — despite war, violence, famine, draught, illness, disease — continues to sustain us all in being. We’re alive; we’re still here, still breathing, still free (or, at least on the way to spiritual freedom), still blessed with more time praise, reverence, and serve God, especially in how we live our daily lives.
Knowing that Hope is a gift from God, a disposition rather than a courageous human act, we pray:
Lord, give me new Hope in You. Help me to see the troubles of my life with your eyes, to be sensitive to them with your heart. Lord, give me new Hope.