On Hope (Update)
Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Book Series, published by Crossroad, has a new title: Take Heart: Catholic Writers on Hope in Our Time. It contains short essay-reflections by many authors, including such Commonweal stalwarts as Lawrence Cunningham, Luke Timothy Johnson, Don Wycliff, and Melissa Musick Nussbaum. (I suppose full disclosure dictates that I confess to having a piece in it as well.)
The essay by Luke Johnson, that I was reading this morning (lectio, if not divina, certainly salutaris) contains these lines:
Why, then, do I keep grading “C” papers even when they persist in being “C” papers? Why do I leap to receive calls from my children even though I know well they may not be bringing good news? Why do my wife, Joy, and I savor the sweetness of each moment of life even as we feel life slipping away? Why does it gladden me to welcome converts to the church even when I know the trials that await them? I once thought that my positive disposition toward life was due to animal high spirits. But as the animal in me weakens, the spirit does not seem to waver. Perhaps my hope really is in something/someone other than myself.
As a teacher, I do not hope that all “C” students will turn into “A” students. Rather, I hope in the living God who constantly, in every generation, sets fires in the minds of some of the young, igniting in them the drive and desire to take up the never-ending battle for truth and beauty and goodness against the forces of barbarism even within themselves. So I cast little seeds of thought, hoping in my students and in the One who can gift them with wisdom. As a theologian who loves the church, I do not hope that ecclesiastical policy will suddenly perfectly realize God’s will. Rather, I speak and write with hope in the living God who can, in every generation, raise up prophets from among us to carry out a powerful witness, not only to the world, but to the church as sacrament of the world
To Luke Timothy: grazie molte; and blessed Thanksgiving to all.
Update:
It seems that even the Pope has been reading dotCom:
Earlier today the “Vice-Pope” [the Cardinal Secretary of State] announced that Spe Salvi — “Saved By Hope” — Benedict XVI’s second encyclical, will be “signed” … and made available on 30 November. [post-Thanksgiving thanks to Whispers in the Loggia]
Thank you for that Luke Timothy Johnson and for suggesting the book. I teach 11th and 12th graders and Johnson’s words ring true for me.
A nice reflection.
Hope requires imagination. Making the rounds recently are reflections by Fr. Bryan Massingale of Milwaukee of the National Priests Council – reflections full of hope.
I urge all to look at them if they get a chance.
Well, if there’s a book that nobody is going to ask me to contribute to, it’s a book about hope.
But I have to say that the biggest change that the Church has made in my life is an increasing respect for the hope of others.
Where I once might have scoffed that Luke Timothy Johnson seems as happy as if he were in his right mind, I now see the hope that one of us receives as a gift to the rest of us.
Some people are able to hope in the cruellest circumstances (and I know many and count them as beloved friends). It is a promise that God is with them, not allowing their spirits to die. And if God is with them, then he is also with the rest of us.
The way to heaven is not clearly marked except by these tiny flickers of hope in the dark.
And now, back to cleaning up the house and hoping that the roast thaws before I have to put it in the oven tomorrow.
Jean–
“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime. Therefore, we are saved by hope.”
That’s either Reinhold Niebuhr or “Emeril Live” (the Thanksgiving show), I can’t remember which.
Geez, I thought that was Galadriel (no relation to Emeril, though I could be wrong) to Frodo. Sounds like the kind of ethereal thing she’d say instead of doing something useful to keep hope alive. Like packing the poor guy a couple sandwiches, finding him a dry pair of socks or offering a book of sudoku puzzles to keep his mind off the Nazgul.
I hope ‘C’ students will never think of themselves as ‘C’ people.
Hope springs eternal, Jean, that you and the genius of Prof. Tolkien will one day reach perfect resonance. ;)
I’m guessing that the encyclical will differ significantly in tone and content from Johnson’s essay.
Pope Benedict has given every indication that his hopes are high: even to the point of clean-sweeping ecclesiastical polity. And the changes could last quite a while.
The new abbot of Monte Cassino, for example, is 45 years old.
According to S. Harent’s article on hope (esperance) in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, (1939), in the Church’s theological tradition, the virtue of hope requires for its practice both courage and patience. He says: “Just as patience helps hope to continue and endure, so, in return, hope helps one to be patient, to resist, to struggle. There is a reciprocal influence. Courageous in its desire, serene in its courage, hope is a principle of action.”
I’ve argued elsewhere, and continue to believe, there is a political virtue of hope, also involving courage and patience, that is analogous to theological hope. The “object ” political hope is that the history of human interaction is, regardless of apparent evidence to the contrary, overall a worthwhile, indeed, noble adventure.
Here, I would add, that so far as I can presently tell, Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” tends also to regard the sweep of human history and the interactions that constitute it as overall a worthwhile history.
There is no compelling argument to “prove” the worth of either theological or political hope, but the importance of practicing these virtues is far from unreasonable.
I should have made it clear above, that I believe that it makes good sense to practice political hope even if one does not believe in God or the afterlife. Furthermore, political hope, like theological hope, is genuine only if it is unconditional. Finally, both of these sorts of hope require their practitioners to exercise a vigorous practice of forgiveness for all those with whom one finds oneself in any sort of serious, protracted conflict.
Dear B.D.:
Thank you for your stimulating reflection.
I would benefit from some further detail, if you’re willing:
1. You speak of “human interaction” as the object of political hope.
2. You also suggest that political hope “is genuine only if it is unconditional.”
Could you elaborate some more on each of those insights?
Dear Fr. Imbelli,
Let me try to give you a better idea of what I’m trying to say.
First, I take hope of any sort to be a deliberately adopted and maintained attitude that modifies how I act and live my life. It is not reducible to a desire.
I take reasonably defensible political practice to have two essential aims. One is to unite a society’s members in action (interaction) to accomplish goods for the all the society’s members which they could not achieve without this unity. The second aim is to establish and preserve order in this society. This latter aim, we see from history, always involves differentiating rulers from the ruled. In doing so, it unavoidably opens up the possibility that the rulers will exploit the ruled. The perpetual task for political practice is to minimize this risk as much as possible while still maintaining the order required to effectively achieve political goods for all.
History shows that all too often political practice has not measured up in this respect. There is no “algorithm” that would enable one to show that irreversible progress is being made to minimize this risk. Nonetheless, regardless of any empirical evidence to the contrary, one can rightly work for this political goal. This holds good both for domestic and international politics. Political hope is genuine only if it refuses to abandon this quest regardless of the success or failure of any of its efforts. In this sense, political hope is unconditional.
Let me add that, for us Christians, this kind of political hope honors the value of our lives with one another here in this life. We cannot rightly be charged with minimizing this life by our hope for eternal life hereafter. Nonetheless, because neither theological hope nor political hope can justify itself by empirical evidence and because their objects do not fully coincide with each other, we Christians will always find a tension in our efforts to remain faithful to both of these deliberately adopted and maintained attitudes.
I don’t know whether you’ll find much sense in this, Father. But if you find it of any use I’ll be glad to try to go further if you wish.
Let me add that the philosophical sources that I’ve drawn most heavily on are Gabriel Marcel and Paul Ricoeur. And, unsurprisingly, Husserl lies in the background.
All good wishes.
One postscript to my comment on hope. Political hope requires an unremitting readiness to forgive others, whatever they have done. So no death penalty and a constant disposition to make peace, as well as a constant recognition that I, too, always have need for forgiveness from others, a need that I hope for unceasingly, even if it has been refused me in the past.
Dear Bernard,
Many thanks for your eloquent and insightful comments.
they make a good deal of sense to me.
I wonder if, when you speak of “an unremitting readiness to forgive,” and the “unceasing” hope for forgiveness from others, the “line” between political hope and theological hope has become transparent?
No, Father, I don’t think that the line between these two kinds of hope becomes so transparent that they effectively merge. The forgiveness that is at play in political hope rests on a “humanistic” conviction that each person is of more worth than whatever he or she does or has done. So, for example, a “humanistic” opposition to the death penalty. The forgiveness at play in theological hope rests on the conviction that God wants not only to to save all of us but also wants us to come to share in His life.
Or at least, this is how I presently see things.