By friar Wayne Hellmann, OFM Conv.

Catastrophic heating and attacks on nature ever increase. Systems devour the vulnerable: the unhoused, refugees, victims of human trafficking, and the many others who are caught in underfunded, and many times, understaffed foster care systems, hospitals, group homes, and prisons. On the other hand, corporate monopolies cement more and more power and wealth.

Are we not also immersed in a culture that attacks our very selves? Both the beginning of human life in the womb and the natural end of human life are nuisances to be capriciously cast aside. Ever more proudly we construct “smarter” weapons to make the destruction of human life in Nagasaki akin to child’s play. Or, again, who reports on or cares about persecuted Christians in the Middle East or the three million dead and the ten million displaced in Sudan, not to mention the 120 million across the globe who have been driven from their homes.

The question in 2024 is – is hope even possible? I wonder how St. Anthony of Padua would respond to this question. In the course of his life, he experienced hopeless personal and social situations. In one of his Sunday sermons, he wrote:

Hope is the footprint whereby we walk to the Lord. Hope is the expectation of good things yet to come, manifested in humble demeanor and conscientious obedience.

Hope denies not the dire. Hope looks beyond the immediate. Hope perseveres in prayerful expectation of good things yet to come: “Thy Kingdom come.” Is not the Lord’s Prayer a radical prayer, filled with hope that the world so described above will indeed pass away? The goodness God showered on us in creation will be fulfilled.

This expectation of good things yet to come is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit. If we rely solely upon our own efforts or upon the power of our body politic to overcome evils and injustices, hope is impossible. However, empowered and engaged by the gift of hope, a footprint to walk to the Lord, all things are possible. “Hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:2).

Hope expects things beyond human estimation. It rests upon the greatest foundation of boundless goodness. We depend upon the God who cannot fail. Hope thereby anchors us in faith and moves our hearts toward boundless love. Thus, this footprint by which we walk to the Lord is found only in humble demeanor and in conscientious obedience to the greatest Good.

Pray for us, St. Anthony! Despite what plagues us in today’s world of 2024, may our energies to build the Kingdom of God be filled “with joyful hope as we await the coming of Our Savior, Jesus Christ” (Liturgy of Eucharist).