Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli
In 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, President Jimmy Carter, President Nelson Mandela, President Vaclav Havel, President Oscar Arias Sánchez, President Shimon Peres, and other world leaders met in Hiroshima, Japan along with scientists, physicians, Nobel Laureates, and business leaders. They came together in order to discuss a way forward in creating hope for society. They knew that the more wars are waged, the fiercer the battles, the greater the destruction and loss of human life. They did not want to see hope for the future snuffed out.
Hope is one of those elusive desires of the heart that can easily be confused with a naïve optimism in the face of difficulties and hardships. Life does not always turn out right. The diagnosis of a terminal illness, even with the best medical treatment, does not always end in a cure. Negotiations do not always secure a lasting peace. Even after counseling, some marriages end with the spouses going their separate ways. The Christian virtue of hope is realistic. It recognizes that, despite our best efforts, failure and death are part of the human experience.
Nonetheless, Christian hope is strong in every situation because it is grounded, not in human effort, but in divine assistance. As St. Thomas Aquinas taught, hope expects “a future good, difficult but possible to attain...by means of the divine assistance...on whose help it leans” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, 17.1). Christian hope does not limit itself to this world. It does not stop at the expectation of health, peace and prosperity. The eyes of Christian hope stretch beyond the limited horizon of earthly happiness to our ultimate purpose. Always in view is our destiny of the fullness of life with God who is ever ready to help us achieve the end for which he created us.
For those who live as if there is no God, there is little room for hope. This world can never fulfill the ultimate purpose of our existence. The mad rush to create a paradise on earth will always end in failure. “If humanity has any hope for a decent future, it lies in the awakening of a humane sense of responsibility, the kind of responsibility rooted far more deeply than the world of transient and temporary interests” (President Vaclav Havel, Acceptance Speech, Hiroshima, Dec. 7, 1995).
Human happiness is not achieved by economic prosperity. It is not the product of science. All the blessings that come to us in this world are temporal. They pass and are gone. And, still there remains the longing for more. God has placed this longing in the human heart so that we seek him, our true and lasting happiness.
Science that offers both cures for healing and weapons of destruction cannot be the basis of hope. The great achievements of science can be used for weal or woe. We are not saved by science. In the end, it is love that saves us from perishing. It is God who is love! And, because people of faith know that they are loved by God at every moment, they can have joy in the midst of suffering and peace in the face of turmoil.
This New Year, I am praying for each of you
in the words of St. Paul:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
(Rom 15:13).