By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ •  St. Josaphat Formation Center • Phoenix, AZ

With every headline and news of more corruption, violence and controversy on all sides, the future may appear dim and discouraging, especially if we lack the virtue of hope. It is not merely human hope of having a nice day that we speak, but of the Theological Virtue of Hope. The Catholic Catechism, #1818, describes it in part: “The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.” (Please also read numbers 1817 thru 1821.)

During his imprisonment in the Soviet gulag, Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ, narrowly escaped death by drowning, freezing, starvation, illness, electrocution, firing squad, explosion, and beating. Worst of all, he was an innocent man imprisoned and treated as an enemy only for wanting to serve others as a missionary. Not only did he survive when millions didn’t, but he managed a fruitful, albeit restricted, ministry and was eventually repatriated. Fr. Ciszek attributed it to the “strange and mysterious ways of divine providence.” “I felt that one reason that God in his providence had brought me safely home was so that I might help others understand these truths a little better.” Which truths? “That God has a special purpose, a special love, a special providence to all those he has created,” and that, therefore, “every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding.”

As we put down the newspaper, it is good to stop and realize that we are far from gulag conditions, and that God still has a “special purpose, a special love and a special providence” for each of us. We must keep the ‘big picture’ of God’s providence in mind when trying times seem to prevail, and then pay close attention to our decisions and actions – that “no matter how dull or trivial, they have worth beyond human understanding.” And so we continue to make the world a better place by doing all the good we can in the ordinary circumstances of our lives with undying hope that God will “order them to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

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