We need hope!

We all need hope to give us the resilience and creativity to get through all that is concerned in life. Hope can be a transient feature or a rooted feature and it can be both in anyone's life. The transient hope is the one we have when we say that we hope we will win the lottery or we'll be the best in the world at something. That hope is fine, but the odds can be stacked high against it happening. The rooted hope is held firm by a belief in something that is actually possible.

I'm from Mayo! Oh, the green and red .... However, what happened with Mayo and Sam this year is an example of hope coming real because all concerned had belief in themselves and the real possibility of a win occurring. Previous to this year, the false hauntings of curses, etc were flying in the wind, but when the management and team dug down into rooted hope and were held firm with belief, look what happened.

Getting past Mayo while recognising it as a great example: The same is true and real with any of our endeavours, particularly the ones that present with greatest challenge and even with despair. If we have a purpose that holds us firm, we can move mountains and realise the amazing strength that each one of us has.

The world we live in offers the most amazing opportunities currently. There is a space for everyone, while there is always an inevitable pushback from the same space. What is the wind beneath our wings? What holds our roots firm when the winds hit hard? Are we going to crash with the first great impact? Will strong impact be the very thing that strengthens our hold in life even more as the muscles of our hearts and minds grow stronger with an added obstacle?

For me personally, my roots rest in Jesus Christ and my hope is in the words and life of the Gospel. We mirror the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus in the peaks and troughs of life and if we do it in the companionship of God, we have someone with whom to share the load.

Faith in God is not at the root of every person. However, we all benefit from having a purpose that goes beyond ourselves and the limitations of our lives. It may be existentialism, or similar. If one is solely dependent on transient goals and purposes, it can be difficult to know where to land after or in storms of life. Not everyone believes in God, but everyone can have some form of belief that holds them rooted, resilient and with purpose even if most human capacities or people abandon one.

Cathy Burke
Catechist in the Lucan Partnership of Parishes