Hope and Resolutions

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

For a thought experiment, I have always wondered what I would put down on paper if I needed to condense our Christian beliefs down to a simple list, no more than 10 or 12 statements—maybe to explain to the basics to someone, maybe to remind myself of what really matters. This morning, I decided to give it a go.

Here is what we believe:

1. There was a plan for the world God created that was broken by sin.

2. The consequence of original sin is corruption and death: the world is now passing away, life is no longer eternal, and human beings are no longer perfect.

3. God wanted to fix our broken world which means: give back to human beings the possibilities of perfection and eternal life.

4. God needed to fix our broken world without snapping his fingers and taking away the freedom he gave us because God made us to live in freedom.

5. God sends Christ, his son, to live a human life and with that life Christ shows us how to live and Christ atones for human sin by offering his life on a cross for our salvation.

6. The resurrection of Christ from the dead is the conquering of death and now eternal life is possible again for human beings.

7. The way for us to receive the gift of eternal life is by making a free choice to live in a relationship with Christ.

8. To live in a relationship with Christ means discipleship and grace: Christ shares his life with us and gives us the power to follow him and live like him.

9. The place where we live in relationship with Christ is the Church that he established.

10. In the Church, the Holy Spirit of God makes the grace of Christ accessible to human beings through sacraments, and these sacraments give human beings the gifts of divine power and divine life.

11. The power and life received through sacraments means that human beings do not experience the gift of eternal life only after death but also now, whenever a human life becomes defined by the fruits of Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

12. The marks of relationship with Christ are conversion and salvation: living like Christ now, and living with Christ forever.

Those are the bullet points of what we believe. I forgot to mention approximately 7,297 other beliefs that each matters, but for practical purposes what we really need to know is captured in those 12 bullet points.

I wanted to give a list of the bullet points of what we believe because I wanted to give a short homily on hope at the start of a new year. Today, as our Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, we also begin a Jubilee Year of Hope. Five days ago, Pope Francis called on Roman Catholics to live as pilgrims of hope in a world that is consumed by war and poverty and violence and addiction.

Here is what you need to know about hope: Hope is a power that God gives you at baptism to desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life and to trust that by receiving the grace of Christ through the sacraments of the Church, you are doing your part to build up the kingdom and now eternal life really is possible for you. Hope is for you. Hope is where God wants us to be selfish. My hope is for my conversion and my salvation first, your hope is for your conversion and your salvation first, and to live as a pilgrim of hope is to get out there in the world and help others to want God and trust God and live like God.

Back to my bullet points: real and authentic hope is about those 12 beliefs, and nothing else. Hope is about conversion and salvation, conversion and salvation, conversation and salvation. You can use other words—discipleship, following, charity, love, eternal life—but the core truth remains the same. Hope is about conversion and salvation: living like Christ now, and living with Christ forever.

The way we use the word ‘hope’ today usually has little to do with conversion and salvation. We have pulled hope down to earth and placed hope more in our own hands. To my mind, the language of politics has trained us to hear the word ‘hope’ and immediately think about what we need to do right now to make the world a better place or to make our lives happier. Hope is now what we do now, hope is about taking action, hope is about satisfying desires and making negative feelings go away and making life more comfortable, safer, secure.

The consequence of misusing the world ‘hope’ is that people suffer from lots of false hope in life. There is so much sadness and despair out there in the world. You can only have your heart broken so many times by false hope before your inclination is to give up. The way we have pulled hope down to earth and placed hope in our hands causes a lot of harm. People are looking for hope where it cannot be found, or building hope that cannot last, or wanting hope that cannot be possessed.

Hope is only about those 12 bullet points: living like Christ now, and living with Christ forever. Every other use of the word ‘hope’ is a misuse, a lesser use of the word, a use of language that confuses people and gets people hurt.

I am going to make it my resolution for the new year to work on hope. The way toward hope is right there in those bullet points: more living like Christ right now, less corruption, more trusting in Christ forever, less death, made possible because Christ shares his power and life with me in the sacraments, and I find these sacraments in the Church, and I know that the power and life of Christ shared with me means that now I can give my life away to other people and make myself less important just like Christ gave his life away to us and made himself less important, and now maybe just maybe in my life there can be more love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more kindness, more goodness, more faithfulness, more gentleness, more self-control.

Hope is about conversion and salvation and nothing else: living like Christ now and trusting that we will live with Christ forever. The way toward hope is found through deeper relationship with Christ, who is found in the Church and given to us in the sacraments, an invitation to a life-giving relationship that is offered to anyone who suffers from the sadness and despair that comes from false hope.

The world needs the hope that is found in Christ.

What kind of a resolution for the new year are you thinking about making?

Homily preached on Wednesday, January 1st at the Basilica Oratory at Corpus Christi