November 24, 2024 Essay: “Pilgrims of Hope”: St. Ignatius Loyola Lecture Series 2025
The ancient Romans constructed temples to their many gods—Apollo and Diana, Mercury and Minerva, Vulcan and Vesta, to name a few. One temple, the Pantheon, was dedicated to all the gods, and on the Feast Day of Hope (August 1st—my birthday!) the priests of the Pantheon hosted a banquet for the gods, according to the historian Livy. The gods were seated in a circle, boy-girl-boy-girl. The first to be seated and the last to leave was the goddess Spes (“Hope”). Hope was known as the last goddess (“spes ultima dea”), because she was the last resort of humans, the goddess who accompanied humans to the grave. Something akin to, “Hope springs eternal,” Cicero wrote, “While there’s life there’s hope” (“dum spiro spero”).
Joan Chittister in her book “Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope” (2005), calls memory the “seedbed of hope.” Hope is not “in spite of” struggle and pain, she says. Hope is born in the midst of struggle and pain from the memory of goodness and beauty and truth. “Biblical hope sees the present circumstance with the eyes of memory.” The memory of the stories and songs of the Bible gives us hope. The memory of home gives us hope, even when those memories are filled with pain and heartache.
The Bible instructs us to be “prepared” to “give reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Did you catch it? The assumption is that disciples of Jesus are known as those who have hope. We are assumed to be a people of hope! “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all” (Emily Dickinson).
In last week’s Bulletin Essay, Fr. Hallinan presented Our Lady as a model of hopefulness: “What lessons does Mary offer us, if we are to live in hope even in times that test our faith? To live in hope, we must be persons of prayer. We must cultivate a living relationship with God in which we consciously call to mind the many ways God has proven to be faithful to God’s people. We also have to call to mind our own personal experience of God’s fidelity to us and of God’s gratuitous love for us. Remembering our own lived experience of God’s fidelity and love, it makes sense for us to persevere in hope, even in the darkest moments of our lives, because we know that God will not disappoint us.”
“Hope Does Not Disappoint” (Romans 5:5), is the title of Pope Francis’ Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year of 2025, and “Pilgrims of Hope” is the title of our 2025 Lecture Series. I am pleased to present today the dates and speakers for the five lectures.
1. January 27: “The Risk of Hope”
Rev. Sam Sawyer, S.J., Editor-in-Chief, AMERICA Magazine.
2. February 10: “Giving Hope to Homeless Youth”
Mr. Carl Siciliano, Founder of the Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive housing program for homeless LGBTQ youth.
3. March 31 (Laetare): “Dorothy Day: Messenger of Hope”
Mr. Robert Ellsberg, Publisher, Orbis Books.
4. April 28: “Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?”
Prof. Robert Klitzman, M.D., Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program, Columbia University.
5. May 12: “Creating a Shared Planetary Future”
Profs. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Allen Grim
Co-Founders and Co-Directors of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University.
The lectures will be on Mondays at 7:00 PM in Wallace Hall. Please mark your calendars now!
— Rev. Michael Hilbert, S.J.
Associate Pastor