What Kind of Prayer Creates Hope?

Pope Francis is convinced that prayer can create hope where there is despair. What kind of prayer could do this? I suspect the answer is hidden in a line often found in the day’s Psalm Response: “Offer the Holy One a sacrifice of praise.” Now, what on earth is a “sacrifice” of praise? At first glance, praise doesn’t seem to have anything to do with sacrifice. Praise is exuberant, joyful, right? What kind of sacrifice might add to this praise? 


To praise and trust God utterly in the face of the following, I think is a true “sacrifice.”
· When I’ve prayed and prayed, and God doesn’t seem to hear
· When I pray and things get worse
· When it occurs to me that God is not listening
· When I decide that I am not worthy to be heard
· When I think I must be praying the wrong way
· When I keep repeating myself as if God is deaf or needs to be reminded 


All of these are my perspectives; they are my point of view. But scripture tells me otherwise:
· “Ask, and you shall receive…”
· “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, that I will do…” 


So this confronts me with a choice: either I stay in my narrow point of view and quit, or make an act of trust that God indeed has heard me the first time, and is already busy answering my prayer…but, not on my timeline, and in ways not known to me. This sacrifice of my own narrow viewpoint then becomes an act of praise:
· I praise God who always hears the hushed prayer of the tiniest child
· I praise God who always hears me
· I praise the God who always keeps promises
· I trust that the Word who made the cosmos can manage my concern
· I acknowledge that God is sovereign and I am not
· I beg for the patience to wait for my answer in God’s due time
· I trust that as the need comes to my mind over and over again, God is at work in a hidden way doing something about it, and I thank the Holy One for this.


Now this is where we can finally get Pope Francis’ point: the result of this “sacrifice” of praise is the creation of a strong hope. 


                                          Hope pushes ahead when it would be easy to quit.

                                                                                                                   - The Christophers

John the Evangelist’s Three Ls

With the Baptism of Jesus, the Light has now been revealed to the Jews. It began with Mary and the angel, expanded to Joseph, then the shepherds, poorest of the poor, who were the first group to learn the Good News. Then comes those foreigners, the Magi. Next, it shines upon the Jews in the Baptism, when Jesus goes public for the first time. Finally, the apostles begin to learn who it is they are following at the wedding of Cana…so John tells us. And then there is us…and there is today. There is the evening News.

John is the writer for all of this revealing of the Light into our darkness. He is all about Light, Life, and Love…the three “Ls.” In this first section of Ordinary Time, keep looking in the texts for the Light blinking, the Life springing up in the most surprising places, and the Love gently replacing the cruelty, bigotry, and woundedness of our broken humanity. Watch the evening news carefully.

The readings of the small section of Ordinary Time are working from the mystery of the Incarnation and what that mystery will eventually do to the world. The Light, Life, and Love are shining from these readings. They are stirring up Light, Life, and Love in us all over the world. Do you see it? Are you ready to have it wrap you roundabout?

You shine, Jesus…

and I find myself blinking in the Light.

You fill me with Life, Jesus,

and I find myself watching with expectation.

You fill me with Love, Jesus,

and I find myself weak in the knees.

What was that Infant up to back then?

And today?

Peekaboo

We all know the game. You hide behind a pillow, or a newspaper…then you peek out and let your face be seen…and the little child squeals with delight. The scriptures say it this way: “Show us your face, Lord, and we shall be saved!”


We are in the season of the Light, the Christmas/Epiphany season of the Church Year. The Light has come, but these weeks ahead are like a game of Peekaboo. It all began with Mary, who is amazed at the plan. She says, “OK, let it be…” and with these words she echoes the very words of creation in Genesis: “Let there be…Light!” and a new creation begins, growing for nine months in her womb. Then Joseph is brought in…then at the birth, the shepherds; then the Magi, representing all the nations. Next comes the apostles coming into the Light at the Wedding of Cana, and finally to all the Jewish nation at the Baptism of Jesus. Now the Light is out in the open…and as the Church Year flows on, we will see the game turn violent. We will try to rid ourselves of the Light as the Paschal Mystery draws us into the Lenten season.


Little by little, the Divine Game unfolds as if the Revealer knows we can only take so much at one time before we blink, overwhelmed. We have learned to avoid the Light. We have learned to hide, ashamed of our darkness, of our weakness, of our ignorance, of our blindness. But the Light comes gently, like a rose tapping on the window pane of our awareness, hoping we will open to its fragrance and smile.


So as this Divine Game goes on may we not only smile, may we squeal with delight. May the Light weave us ‘round about and steal kisses…may it tickle us until we are weak, until we are swept up in its arms and carried off safe, healed, and secure. For this is what it means to be saved.

O wondrous Love,

Hiding in our very humanness…

Peeking out to charm us…

Drawing us into your game.

Coming to woo us as a baby!

Is this the way for a God to act?

But you hide…

And we seek…

Ending up caught

And wrapped around your little baby finger.

Let it be.

True and False Hope

“Hope accepts misunderstandings as the price for serving the greater good of others.”
                                                                                                                         --The Christophers


We can be duped by false hope, Pope Francis warns us in his reflections on hope. As we begin this New Year, we would do well to put in to practice a well-known Dominican value: “Seldom affirm; never deny; always distinguish.” It takes distinguishing to spot fake from true hope.

Useless and foolish, false hope lures us to be misled by the idols that want our trust, making these “works of our hands” the sole objects of our hope. Yes, it’s idolatry, plain and simple, but dressed up in modern clothes, and its drawing power is strong.


We all have our moments, those times when we meet life’s difficulties, and we experience how fragile our trust is, and how strong is our need for certainty…for tangible, concrete assurances. And here lies the danger. We find ourselves seeking surface consolations that seem to fill the void of loneliness and relieve the fatigue of believing. Powerless and deceptive, these idols are like pacifiers given to babies: they promise everything, but deliver nothing. “Maybe this time I’ll win the lottery,” we think, or another helping of potatoes might suave the deeper hunger I have for friendship and understanding.


The psalmist adds an insight here that is bone-chilling: “…they have eyes but do not see, ears that do not hear…hands that do not feel…Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them. (Ps. 115:4-8) I don’t know about you, but that stops me in my tracks. Become like them? Sounds dehumanizing to me, but it’s true. Often we are more content with the surface hope that a false idol gives us than with the deep and sure hope the Lord gives us.


Twisted philosophies, short-sighted political perspectives, power, possessions, unlimited health, they all can be idolatrous, luring us down the wrong path and robbing us of real happiness. The psalm is clear: we become like our idols. We no longer have anything to say, any way to help, any hope of changing things. We are unable to smile, to give of ourselves. We become incapable of love. But the psalm continues: “…trust in the Lord…The Lord has been mindful of us; he will bless us.”


Even in bad times the Holy One remembers. This is true hope, one that does not disappoint. Idols are fake, make-believe, but here is hope’s reality. True hope allows us to enter God’s own remembrance…we become like him. This Holy One never disappoints. Now that is something solid to take along as we enter the New Year, and we Racine Dominicans are rooted in hope.


“Here is the wonderful reality of hope: in trusting in the Lord, we become like him. His blessing transforms us into his children who share in his life.”

                                                                                                                                   - Pope Francis
                                                                                           On Hope, Chicago: Loyola Press, 2017.