Benedict XVI & Hope
Christian hope, while not curing a person of burdens, heals in providing a context through which such burdens are (in a sense) relativized.
To Benedict, mutated is hope if one seeks in Christianity a curing of burdens. In much of Benedict’s reflection on the theological virtues, there is a recognition that while faith, hope and love might not have disappeared from contemporary cultures, they have lost much of their Christian meaning.
Healing the situation of the modern person cannot mean a denial of the reality of one’s own existence, nor the sort of unwarranted optimism in progress, or in development aimed at alleviating present conditions. Benedict has observed that while the Church has an interest in humanizing civilization, and in altering the situation of the modern person, this is a consequence of the Church having called persons into an encounter with Christ.
Benedict offers no false promises: Hope heals the modern person’s situation, not by curing of burdens, but by allowing a person to face his or her present, however arduous, with the conviction that the present leads towards a goal. Christian hope gives a person a certain sort of certainty of this goal, and this goal is seen as justifying the efforts of the journey towards it.
Hope heals because it consists in a person’s encounter with Christ. In the midst of human misery, a modern person finds solidarity in Christ who himself “knows even the path that passes through the valley of the shadow of death.” Christ accompanies a person on his or her path of solitude, and having descended to the dead, Christ has conquered it. In returning to accompany people, Christ gives people a certain certainty that there is a way through misery.
Because of having encountered Christ, and through this experience, person’s are able to experience something of what awaits. A person of hope is thus able to disassociate healthily from her present situation, and as she has found a ”better basis,” such a person is freed to a great extent from that which might otherwise have held her down. Like Josephine Bakitha, the hope found in the realization of being loved, and being awaited by this love, motivates the desire to hand this experience to others, and in fact, to the greatest number of people possible.
Thus a Christian hope which heals, heals beyond the individual who has experienced God’s love.
Kelly.
Kelly Wilson is a Seminarian for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Besides Vox Nova he writes at his blog Musings.
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Yes. Spe Salvi saved me at a particular moment of true despair in my life. And Benedict focusing on Bakitha’s story in the beginning was needed because her story reveals humanity’s condition without a Savior.
Good post.
Amen. Thanks for a post on hope. Vox nova has been somewhat depressing lately with all the abortion, racism, and despicable threats of violence.