Newton Stewart, Wigtown and Whithorn RC Churches

Catholic Churches in the Machars of Galloway

Prayer of Hope.   (25th November ‘07)

PRAYER OF HOPE

 

“Today, people need hope. “ This has been said to me by different friends in different contexts over the past few years. In some ways, it is a surprising remark. At least for a certain number of human beings, there appears to be an unlimited scope for hope: the possibilities and opportunities we have created for ourselves only seem to be increasing. Scientific and technological advances are opening up more and more uncharted waters. We seem to be penetrating to the roots of reality itself.

 

Yet, statistics show that in the psychological, moral and spiritual realms, people have become increasingly disoriented. The emphasis on a false kind of personal freedom has had a contradictory result for many: they are afraid of their freedom; they don’t know how to handle it. No matter how much freedom we have, we cannot ultimately give ourselves a meaning and direction which is definitive … unless we direct it towards Christ. For if Christ is not the future of humanity, and thus of each of us, what is that future going to be? The grave? An endless life in this world where our mortality holds sway over everything? Is our future going to be self-annihilation, as some types of religious and philosophical movements would have us believe? Do we exist so as to be annihilated?

 

The whole thrust of human longing and desiring is for the eternal. Our very mind seeks eternal truth, our hearts eternal love, our bodies eternal life. We need certainty that our life is not mere chance, vanity and absurdity. But, of course, we cannot now hold in our hands the eternity for which we long. It presents itself to us as a promise, and our response to this promise, even at a human level, is hope. Hope is that inner strength or virtue which lives every experience of yesterday and today in the light of the eternal tomorrow. Hope refuses to be cowed by any failure, even by death itself. Christian hope is rooted in the victory of Jesus over death. Christian hope is therefore the power of the resurrection in the here and now. In a paraphrase of St. Paul’s words, “I live now this mortal life in the power of Christ’s immortal life in me.” Christian hope roots the very fibre of our being in the Advent Christ, the Christ who is coming, because he already came once before and destroyed our death. No-one and nothing else in human history has laid claim to this hope-giving Good News: death has been destroyed!

 

Hope gives to our freedom a quality and a strength which can face anything. Hope, when it is true, makes us fearless – but not careless. Hope is not a naïve optimism which pays no attention to the consequences of our actions and decisions. Rather, since hope keeps the coming Christ in view, it directs us to take decisions and actions in a way that will help us be ready for Christ. And if now we fail, for whatever reason, and in whatever way, hope gives us the courage of humility to keep coming back to Christ, refusing to be beaten by sin or weakness. If I may thus anticipate in my own way what the Pope’s encyclical might say, it is by hope that we will be saved.

 

1.   Find a quiet and still place. Perhaps you might use the “centering prayer” of a few months ago to become restful within your own deepest self. Bring with you a picture (real or in your head) of a scene which fills you with hope, or the desire for a peace and joy which as yet escape you. Ask the Lord for the grace of hope and for the strength you need to break the power of any fear or despair within you. Use these, or any other, words: “Lord, grant me deep and abundant hope in You, my Life, my Healing, my Rescuer, my Victory! Deliver me from all despair, from fear of my past or my future; deliver me from my sin and lack of love; deliver me from my mortality and from all my inadequacies; deliver me from skepticism and cynicism, from apathy and indifference, from mediocrity and doubt. Be You my Hope until I see You face to face. Amen.”

2.  Look Christ straight in the eyes. See their immense love and tenderness, their clarity and transparency. Ask Him to let you see your own deepest self reflected in His eyes. Let Him reveal you to yourself, as you are, as He sees you. Express to Him whatever you feel.

3.  In the light of what you have seen in Christ’s eyes about yourself, tell Him now, in simple words, what there is in you that deprives you of true Christian hope – that is, of hope in Him.

4.  Now let Him speak to your lack of hope in His beautiful human and divine voice, using some words you have already heard from the Bible (His Word!) and which have given you hope. For example, “(Today), I promise you, you will be with me in Paradise”; “Do not be afraid, your sins, your many sins, have been forgiven”; “I am with you always, yes to the end of time”; “It is I – do not be afraid!”; “Peace be with you!”; “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace”; “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love”; “I have loved you with an everlasting love”; “I will heal your iniquity, for I am God, not man”; “Yahweh, Yahweh, God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and rich in mercy”; “He who believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live; and I will raise him up on the last day”; “I will draw all men to myself.”; etc..

5.  Try to see his word take aim at the source within you of your lack of hope, like a laser beam, burning it away. This may not take away the external circumstances causing you problems, but it can help you interiorly, spiritually, to find deep peace and joy.

6. Finally, open your arms out for a few moments as a sign of deep spiritual yearning for Christ to come to you, now, at the hour of your death and at the end of time.

 

Mgr. Peter Magee