God doesn’t want us to settle for less than everything.
We held a day of recollection to end our summer program this year and our Bishop, Michael Brehl, gave the final conference. Here is part one of his talk.
I really appreciate the theme for tonight, which is that of the final week of the summer program, Hope for the Future: Can God actually guide us towards our good?
There is hope for our future because we believe that God is guiding us for our good. God’s plan for us is good beyond all telling. It’s beyond our wildest imagining. What eye has not seen, what ear has not heard, this is what God has in store for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).
What a hope-filled statement about our future! I want to begin with two passages from Scripture. The first is the passage with which Pope Francis began his bull of indiction for the Holy Year when he called us to become pilgrims of hope. The title of that bull, Spes non Confundit – Hope Does Not Disappoint, is taken from Romans 5:1-5.
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us.
In that brief paragraph, St. Paul outlines the hope for our future, the elements on which that hope is based, and how that hope will grow.
First, it is hope that we will share in the glory of God. It is hope which promises us that the world we’re living in right now, our present life with all of its blessings and joys, is only a foretaste to whet our appetites for what it will be like to share in the glory of God.
And that process of growing into sharing in the glory of God — that process of theosis, of divinization, by which we can, even now, through the gift of the Spirit, share in God’s own nature — is beginning even now, and it is going to bear fruit when we see God face to face and are united with God, with one another, with all who have gone before us.
That’s the hope, based on the justification we receive through faith. It is a gift, and the price has already been paid. Jesus has died and risen again so that we can have the surety of that hope.
Then Paul tells us that everything that happens to us here, all that we experience, everything we’re hopeful for, and everything we’d like to avoid — all of it is part of that plan of God. Even suffering, and we all suffer in different ways.
Our sufferings produce endurance, which, says God, gives the grace for me to live with and within the experiences of my life so that suffering does not have the final word, just as it didn’t with Jesus. And also so that my suffering doesn’t focus my attention only on myself, which is always the danger. Suffering can focus us so much on ourselves that we become blind to those around us and to the signs of hope.
The endurance Paul is talking about is the endurance which allows us to continue to run the race, continue to love, continue to serve, continue to do what each day demands whether we feel like it or don’t feel like it, and that endurance will build character.
How do we know that this hope is real? That it’s not just an illusion? That it’s not just wishful thinking or optimism, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses? Because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
It bears fruit in the witness of our lives and gives us the grace to continue to follow Jesus, to continue to love one another, to see one another, to be attentive to one another. And this hope does not disappoint. What a beautiful passage about hope for the future!
If we don’t get the big picture of where we’re headed and what everything is really all about and what our hope for the future is, we will settle for less. And God doesn’t want us to settle for less than everything.
In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul talks about suffering. He knows that his time is running out. He can feel already that his race is run, that he has fought the good fight. Then he says, If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ (1 Cor 15:19-20, 22).
This is the promise God is making to us, saying, “Please grasp this. Take hold of it. You just can’t begin to imagine how good it will be.”
I want to tell you a little story about Fr. Victor, a priest I knew. He was a Redemptorist, like me. He’d been a missionary in Brazil and came back to Canada in his older years, when his health began to fail. When I was first made a pastor in a parish, the provincial and his council sent Fr. Victor to live with me in Sudbury, and we became very, very good friends.
I can’t tell you how many times I would sit on the end of his bed and he would be in his easy chair smoking a pipe, (even though it was forbidden to smoke in the house). I would talk to him about some of the problems I was encountering and draw on the wisdom of his life experience, especially when there was conflict.
I never liked the phrase “conflict resolution” because a lot of conflicts never get resolved. I think it’s more about learning how to live with the conflict and not forget to see the person. It’s too easy to forget to see the person.
Fr. Victor’s health continued to decline and eventually he had to move to nursing care in Toronto. He didn’t want to go, but he went, and he didn’t complain. I used to go to see him every chance I had; it was always such a pleasure to visit with him.
I used to visit a lot of people in nursing homes, and I would hear all about their latest medical conditions and how life wasn’t so good and nobody came to see them, etc. I never heard that from Father Vic. He was always interested in what I was doing and how things were going. “Isn’t it exciting? Did you read the latest encyclical from Pope John Paul?” He was on top of everything.
One day I said to him, “You can’t get out of bed by yourself anymore, you can’t walk, you’re in a wheelchair, you’re on many medications, and you have problems breathing. But I’ve never heard you complain. I ask you how you are, and you always say, ‘Wonderful.’ How did you get like that? Tell me your secret, because I don’t see a lot of people living like this.”
He told me that when he was a young priest, he used to visit some of his older confreres and listen to their tales of woe. He realized at a certain point that he couldn’t wait to get out of the room.
He said to himself, when I grow old, I want people to come and see me not because they have to but because they want to. It was as if God said to me, if you want that to happen Victor, you had better start living that way now.
He said, “I developed the habit of focusing on what’s good, of being thankful for whoever came to see me, of living my suffering with endurance and not with lamentation. I try to keep doing it.” I could see the fruits.
When you have your eyes set on your goal, a future where you can share God’s glory, it affects how you live here and now. People will recognize something that draws them to you, because you’re living this hope and promise even in the present moment.
I’ve had many experiences with people who have held on to this hope and made it the foundation of their lives. They know this hope is not illusory because they are living it now.
In the farewell discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper, John 14, Jesus is at table with his friends. He knows what he’s going to face. He knows they have a sense that something’s coming, and they don’t want to face it. In fact, they don’t have the strength to face it. They don’t know that yet, but they will soon discover it.
And what does Jesus say to them? Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Trust in God still, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my father’s house. If there were not, I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you and I will return to take you with me (Jn 14:1-3).
He knows what they are about to do. He has told Peter, “You think you’re going to lay down your life for me? You are going to deny three times that you know me.” He has sent Judas off to betray him. He knows the others are going to run away, even Philip, who had said, “Let’s go and die with him.”
He knows all this, but he wants them to know that it doesn’t matter: “I’m still going to prepare a place for you and I’m still coming back to take you with me.” Even as they face their own weakness, infidelity, sinfulness, fear, and failure, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”
Hope for the future? I think it is very hopeful to know that Jesus speaks to us by name and knows us as we are, not only as we like others to think of us.
He knows what we’re capable of and he knows where we’ve fallen. He knows what we’re ashamed of. He knows what we’re afraid to face, where we failed, where we’ve betrayed, where we’ve run away, and he says, Don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Trust in God and trust in me still. I’m going to prepare a place for you and I’m going to return and take you with me.
So is there hope for the future? Absolutely. Can God guide us into the future? God is guiding us often in ways we don’t even know.
To be continued…
