This article is based on the address presented by me to over six hundred Major Superiors during the CRI National Assembly held in Bangalore from 14th to 17th May 2024.
Let us start by unpacking what elusive ‘hope’ really means. When psychologists and researchers delved into the science of hope, they discovered that some aspects of hope were surprisingly different from what we initially thought.
MYTH 1: Hope is wishful thinking that something will turn out well.
Truth: Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up. HOPE implies a willingness to HOP.
The American psychologist Charles Snyder, renowned for his extensive study on hope, emphasized that hope isn’t just the belief in a brighter future but, more importantly, that we have the ability to make it happen. Hope is not tied to a good outcome or to the future, nor is it optimism about things outside of our control.
Apartheid in South Africa wasn’t dismantled by force or by merely replacing politicians but by a tiny action of hope.
Amid racial injustice, people of faith prayed together and lit candles in their windows as a sign of hope against apartheid. The government saw this as subversive, criminalizing it. In Soweto, a joke emerged: “Our government fears lit candles!” Ultimately, hope, prayer, and candles morally shamed and defeated apartheid.
Something similar was done across our country on the 3rd of last month for the conflict-troubled people of Manipur by numerous Church groups who organised candlelight rosaries. In the picture, you can see how the CRI unit in Shillong collaboratively did a similar action of hope.
MYTH 2: Hope thrives in pure positivity.
Truth: Hope, uniquely among pleasant emotions, requires negativity or uncertainty.
Joan Chittister in her book Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, begins the book with a confession. Her original plan was to write a book about hope. But that didn’t work.
Everywhere she looked, hope existed but only as some kind of green shoot amid struggles. The more she struggled with the idea of hope, the more she began to realize that it is almost impossible to write a real book about hope without looking at the nature of struggle. She anchors her reflections on the Genesis story of the wrestling between Jacob and the angel of God. So much of hope is wrestling with God.
Ironically during our visit to Manipur last year, what moved me and us was to see the strong resilience and hope in relief camps where the living conditions were the bleakest. Where the circumstances were most dire, the stench was the strongest, hope burned brightest.
Br. Sunil Britto CFC
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