INCARNATE HOPE

   First, we must understand the nature of hope and its origin. In Spes Non Confudit-”Hope Does Not Disappoint”(Rom.5:5), Pope Francis writes: “Hope, together with faith, hope and charity, makes up the triptych of the 'theological virtues' that express the heart of the Christian life....In their inseparable unity, hope is the virtue that, so to speak, gives direction and purpose to the life of believers”(18). Hope then is not a a plum hanging from a celestial cloud. Hope is the Holy Spirit's Baptismal gift that through grace and human cooperation becomes incarnate or enfleshed in our lives as we follow Jesus. Two events speak to incarnate hope in my life.

   I begin with an experience from my teaching high school English in a small rural high school . One afternoon just before Christmas(1969) a student, stayed after class to talk with me. She looked very worried, so I asked about her brother, Donnie, a known troublemaker since elementary school. My student answered, Donnie is in Riverside, the provincial psychiatric hospital. I knew about the institution because my doctor put me in it months ago for treatment, but I did not share this information with her.
   When I returned to my parents' home for Christmas break, I felt an urge to visit Donnie, so I did and the meeting went well.
  In the New Year a colleague and his wife, a school psychologist, arranged a blind date for me with their friend. My dating experience was very limited, but something said give the arrangement a try.
    I arrived at Shirley's apartment with a pink carnation. In a surf hair style and a blue dress, she greeted me. The meeting went well-dancing, dinner-so we began dating. One evening Shirley and I were sitting in her kitchen. When we started to share tender secrets, I told her about my visiting Donnie and my hospital experience. Shirley then shared she was a psychiatric patient too. Silence fell over us: we had shared our vulnerabilities which released a love that drew us together eventually as husband and wife.

   In January 2015 came the next encounter with incarnate hope. I stood at the end of our sidewalk, waving goodbye to Shirley driving over to her church service at Spring Park United. As I turned to reenter the house, I felt a strong rush at the back of my head. I immediately phoned an ambulance which appeared in three minutes. The attendants loaded me on a stretcher, and off we went the to the local hospital. At some point I received medication: I was having a stroke. At the hospital the doctors' x-rays indicated cerebral hemorraging. Quickly the attendants reloaded me into the ambulance for a fast, rocky ride to a Moncton hospital. Meanwhile, the hospital had contacted Shirley. With a relative she rushed to Moncton. The journey of hope had begun.
  The treatment rendered me unconscious for days. A heavy snowstorm blanketed Moncton, but did not stop Shirley; she fought her way through knee-high drifts to read me, although unconscious, the daily readings from my missalette Living with Christ and my meditation from The Word Among Us. My situation was touch and go. But visitors, prayers even from my Island parish came in. The ambulance took me back to our Island hospital from which I was discharged on March 17tn, St. Patrick's Day.

       But what does all the above life experiences have to do with hope and Francis' Papal Bull? The answer will draw out the heart of this reflection. I turn to Pope St. John Paul II, a Catholic phenomenologist, who believed God in his immanence speaks to the faithful in and through their experience. I acknowledge the above was a life or death reality, but many signs of hope were in the both events: in the first instance, Shirley and I sharing our vulnerability; and in the second passage, the immediate response of the ambulance, the high level of medical care, Shirley's quick and faith filled response by my side. One might say I had two crises, meaning turning points: one gave me my wife, the second gave me my life back. Both embodied incarnate hope.

To conclude, I return to Spes Non Confudit. Pope Francis writes: “Hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us(Rom.5:1-2.5)(2). I have called this Divine gift, enunciated by Francis, incarnate hope that had flown through my two sharings. My prayer in this Jubilee Year of Hope and every year is that incarnate hope will continue to flow through me and Shirley like “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”(Jn 14:4).

Reference: https//www.vatican va >francesco>