The Famine of Hope
Pope Francis called the Jubilee of Hope because he had taken notice of what he called a “famine of hope.”
He said: “Today our world is experiencing a tragic ‘famine’ of hope. So much pain, emptiness, and inconsolable grief surrounds us!”
Notice his choice of words: a famine of hope. Famine doesn’t exist because of a lack of something, but because we cannot get what is necessary to those who need it. There is food in the world, yet people starve. There is hope in the world, yet people despair.
The Light That Shines in the Darkness
Our Christian faith is the light of hope for the world. Today’s Gospel from John opens our eyes to the source of all hope: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God … All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.”
Here is the promise at the heart of our faith: the darkness cannot overpower the light. No matter how deep the night, no matter how fierce the storm, the light continues to shine. This is not wishful thinking or empty optimism. This is the bedrock truth of the Incarnation: “The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory.”
God did not observe our suffering from a safe distance. He entered into it. He became one of us. He pitched his tent among us, eskēnōsen en hemin, the Greek text literally says. He set up camp in our neighbourhood.
He was born into the messiness of our personal struggles. If you are worried right now because of the threat of ill health, either for yourself or someone you love; if the breakdown of relationships in your family or friendship group is an agony for you; if financial worries are leading you to despair; it is there, in the heart of our mess, that he has pitched his tent.
The spectre of war all across our world can lead us to the brink of despair; remember the horrible litany of injustice and carnage about which we pray unceasingly; Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and the list goes one.
We remember our fellow Christians who suffer persecution in Nigeria and many other places. We open our hearts to insecurity of people forced to leave their home countries seeking shelter and refuge from war and persecution.
All of this is the world in which the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.
Enlightened Eyes
In our second reading, St. Paul prays something extraordinary: “May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit.”
The eyes of your mind. Paul is not speaking of physical sight but of spiritual vision. How many of us walk through life with our eyes open but unseeing? We look but do not perceive. We are present but not aware.
This Jubilee has been an invitation to have our eyes enlightened, to see differently, to perceive the hope that has always been there but which we had failed to notice.
Because of the Word who has been made flesh we are already at the banquet; we have a place already at the heavenly feast. Pope Leo tells us that because of our faith, everything, even our suffering can take on new meaning. Because of the faith we have been given our suffering can become “the suffering of childbirth.”
Our God incarnate is continuing his work of creation, and human beings, sustained by hope, are called to cooperate in that creative work. “History,” he says, “is in the hands of God and of those who hope in Him.”
From Receivers to Messengers
Surely, we gather in the Cathedral today because we are people who have encountered Christ. The challenge in front of us is this: how do we bring the hope that is within us to others?
This is where the famine metaphor becomes powerful. We are not called merely to possess hope for ourselves, like those who hoard food during scarcity. We are called to be distributors of hope, channels through which the consolation of the Spirit flows to a parched and hungry world.
Of course, we feel totally inadequate to the task of bringing faith and hope to our world but that is our challenge. We can do it, if we realise deep within ourselves that the power to change things comes not from us but from God who has become flesh and pitched his tent among us. The infant in the manger does not look like the solution to the world’s problems. Yet John tells us: “To all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.”
Our Task Moving Forward
As this Jubilee closes, we carry forward a sacred responsibility. We have been given eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand. We have been enlightened to perceive “what hope his call holds for us.”
My prayer for our whole diocese and for each parish and each community within it is that we accept the graces that we have been given through celebrating this Jubilee of Hope.
This is not an additional task added to our already busy lives. It is the transformation of everything we do. Every interaction becomes an opportunity to radiate hope. Every conversation becomes a chance to deliver the consolation of the Spirit. Every moment becomes sacred ground where the Word continues to become flesh in our words and deeds.
Our challenge is to let the hope that has come into the world radiate through everything we do, not just for ourselves but for all those who hunger and thirst for the hope that only Christ can give.
Hope in Christ is the power of God to feed a hungry world. In this context Pope Leo recently said: “Jesus wants to be born again. We can give Him body and voice. This is the childbirth for which creation waits.”
“To hope,” the Pope concluded, “is to see this world becoming the world of God.”