Faith

The irony of terrible tragedies occurring alongside the opening of this year's Jubilee of Hope should not be lost on us. Hope is precisely what we need right now, and desperately so.

Jaymie Stuart
Wolfe

Waking up in New Orleans on New Year's Day was a lot like driving home from work after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Shocking, disorienting, and very sad. The evil of that manmade tragedy, coupled with the damage caused by wind-driven wildfires in California, have made for a very rough start to 2025. It didn't take long for greetings of "Happy New Year" to sound hollow, or even inappropriate. Had we known what this year would look like less than two weeks into it, very few of us would have popped a cork to Auld Lang Syne on New Year's Eve.
We never really know what's in store for us. And events that underscore that truth for us fill us with uneasiness and insecurity. Moments in which everything good seems to be in short supply are jarring. They are also the moments that make it clear that the myths, optimism, and sentimentality we too often rely on will never be adequate substitutes for the three things that endure: faith, hope, and love.

What Catholics know as the "theological virtues" are not abstract theoretical constructs. They are the staples of the Christian life. Faith, hope, and love are the three things we all long for, the three things that make for a full life here, and the three things that bring us to an even fuller life with God in heaven. We may not spend much time thinking about them, but the theological virtues are what motivate and animate us at the core. Without them, we find ourselves adrift at the mercy of prevailing currents. With them, we are able to navigate whatever comes -- or doesn't come -- our way.
The irony of terrible tragedies occurring alongside the opening of this year's Jubilee of Hope should not be lost on us. Hope is precisely what we need right now, and desperately so. And while hope won't stop terrorist attacks or save communities from fiery devastation, it does enable those who suffer these adversities and all others to find, in time, a pathway through terrible loss.
And for the rest of us? Only hope can empower us to stand with those who suffer, and even more, to walk with them. Hope alone gives us the strength -- and the desire -- to accompany others along the way of sorrows, the way of the cross. It anchors us to God and to one another and brings us a sense of security and peace the world can never impart. But it is important to remember that hope does not minimize pain. It is not callous or unrealistic. And yet, it offers us counter testimony to what we experience, the convincing witness that tells us that there is more to life than we can see.
Trauma doesn't just disappear, and the vacuum it creates in the human soul must be filled by something. The struggle to choose hope over cynicism and despair is a very human one. When everything else is lost or seems to be, hope is what remains. Hope is the deep reassurance that things don't end this way, that there is more to the story. It encourages us to take the longer view, to keep moving forward, to set lesser things aside -- even those that are most dear to us -- so that we can reach for and grasp what is eternal.
In the face of tragedy and disaster, the universal church raises up hope. Each one of us is called to do the same. We do that best when we draw close to those who suffer. If we are honest, we know that from a safe distance, we can't do it at all.
There is one solitary and living source of hope that will never leave us disappointed: Jesus Christ. So as we begin a new and perhaps difficult year, let us hold on to the words we pray and take them to heart: "Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

- Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic convert, wife, and mother of eight. Inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, she is an author, speaker, and musician, and provides freelance editorial services to numerous publishers and authors as the principal of One More Basket. Find Jaymie on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @YouFeedThem.

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