This Season of Creation is happening in a time which our late Pope Francis designated to renew ourselves as “Pilgrims of Hope.” And man, does that renewal seem so necessary and appropriate right now. So what kind of hope are we talking about exactly? Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer uses slightly different language, but I love his analogy. He makes the distinction between two kinds of optimism:
Complacent optimism is the feeling of a child waiting for presents. Conditional optimism is the feeling of a child who is thinking about building a treehouse. “If I get some wood and nails and persuade some other kids to help do the work, we can end up with something really cool.”
It seems to me that Romer’s conditional optimism mirrors the type of hope Fr. Daniel spoke about in a recent sermon. Namely, a hope where we also “pray with our feet”. And this idea connects back to a poem from St. Teresa of Avila:
Christ Has No Body
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
This kind of active hope and “prayer with our feet” is what we need to fill both our personal and collective souls at this moment. Find your passion and your community and go forth with God.
Andy Willette
Creation Justice Committee