For Pope Francis, one of most needed virtues of modern time is hope,
which is something he said must never be abandoned no matter how hard
life gets, and which is often expressed in the simple act of a smile.
Referring to the “dramatic moment” of Israel’s exile in the desert,
Pope Francis said Dec. 7 that this time was especially hard for the
people because they had lost everything, and felt “abandoned and without
hope.”
The desert is a difficult place to live, he said, but noted that it
is precisely inside the desert that the people of Israel are able to
walk in order to return “not only to their homeland, but to return to
God, and to hope and smile again.”
“When we are in darkness and difficulty the smile doesn’t come, but
there is the hope that teaches us to smile on that path to find God,”
Francis said, noting that one of the trademarks of those who break away
from God is “the absence of the smile, the smile of the hope of finding
God.”
Perhaps these people know how to “have a good laugh” or make jokes,
but they are missing the smile that only God knows how to give, the Pope
continued.
Life, he said, “is often a desert, it’s hard to walk in it, but if we
entrust ourselves to God it can become beautiful and wide like a
highway.”
“It’s enough to never lose hope, it’s enough to continue to believe,
always, despite everything,” he said, noting that often when we find
ourselves in front of a child, “there is a spontaneous smile because a
child is hope.”
“Let us also smile even if it was a difficult day, because we see the hope.”
Pope Francis spoke to the thousands of pilgrims present for his Wednesday general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
After concluding his yearlong catechesis on mercy during the Jubilee,
Francis began a new series on Christian hope, which he noted was timely
given the fact that he started it during the Advent season.
Hope, he said, is needed “so much in these times that appear so dark,
in which at times we feel lost in front of the evil and violence that
surrounds us, in front of the pain of our brothers and sisters.”
Noting how many can feel lost, discouraged and even “powerless” in
front of a darkness that seems like it will never end, the Pope stressed
that “we mustn’t let hope abandon us, because God with his love walks
with us, he doesn’t leave us alone,” but has instead “conquered evil and
opened to us the path of life.”
Francis pointed to the words spoken by Isaiah in the days’ reading,
taken from Chapter 40 of the Book of Isaiah when he prophet offers words
of comfort and urges the people to prepare the way of Lord in the
wilderness.
Pope Francis said that as a Father, God consoles his children by
“raising up comforters” who are tasked with encouraging the people by
announcing that their tribulation and pain is over, and that their sin
has been forgiven.
“This is what heals the afflicted and frightened heart,” he said,
adding that for the people, consolation begins with the possibility of
walking along the path God carves out for them in the desert, which is a
“new path, rectified and viable” which allows them to return to their
homeland.
The people to whom Isaiah speaks were living “the tragedy of exile,”
but now hear that they will be able to return to their homeland on a
wide and level road, without the obstacles that often make the journey
“arduous,” he said.
Preparing this path, Francis said, “means to prepare a path of
salvation and liberation from every obstacle and stumbling block.”
When Isaiah says that he is the voice “of one crying out in the
desert: prepare the way of the Lord,” the Pope noted that it’s a voice
that seems to be crying out in a place where “no one is listening” and
which mourns “the loss owed to the crisis of faith.”
However, he stressed that the true story is not the one made by the
powerful who are seen by the world, “but rather the one made by God
together with his little ones.”
Zechariah and Elizabeth were elderly and “marked by infertility,” and
Mary was a young virgin betrothed to Joseph, while the shepherds who
met the infant Jesus “were despised and didn’t count for anything,” the
Pope observed.
“It is the small ones, made great by their faith, the little ones who
know how to continue to hope,” he said, adding that it is they who are
able to transform “the desert of exile, of desperate loneliness, of
suffering, into a level road on which to walk to meet the glory of the
Lord.”
“Let us therefore teach hope, let us look forward faithfully to the
coming of the Lord and whatever the desert of our lives, it will become a
flowery garden.”