As a religious director, I’ve the nice privilege to accompany people on their religious journeys. A number of the those who I accompany serve within the Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC). With a wealthy array {of professional} and life experiences, they’re at some extent in life after they might retire. But they proceed to supply their time generously in organizations that carry out the works of mercy.
As I hear to those people, I’m frequently in awe of the methods by which they attempt to discern and reply Christ’s name to serve of their lives on daily basis, each of their houses and of their communities. What strikes me most isn’t just how full their lives are, however their indomitable spirits. These are individuals of hope with a capital “H”—not a Pollyanna-ish or giddy hope, however a grounded hope, rooted in religion.
After I was praying with Austen Ivereigh’s e-book, First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis, these IVC members have been the primary individuals who got here to thoughts. Reflecting upon Pope Francis’s phrases, Ivereigh writes, “Hope will not be one thing we possess; fairly, hope is what we do, once we act out of the conviction that it’s worthwhile to hunt and nurture life.” Hope is that which empowers the people within the Ignatian Volunteer Corps every day as they work to appreciate the Kingdom right here on earth.
It’s a hope that beckons to us all and invitations us to come back out of our silos and comply with it to the margins of society. Accompanied by grace, it illuminates hearts and discomforts; one is not in a position to be content material when there may be injustice and struggling. This hope empowers its followers—not simply to respect the dignity of every particular person one meets, however to assist to revive and keep the human dignity of those that have been robbed of it.
It’s a bit dangerous, as a result of as soon as we settle for hope’s invitation, there isn’t a going again. This hope is transformational. It permeates the being, molding those that reply the decision into men and women for others. This Spirit-powered hope is the catalyst for change that we want on the earth in the present day. And it’s an invite as previous as time; as Psalm 40 invitations us to answer, “Right here I’m Lord; I come to do your will.”
