WHEN MEMORY NOURISHES HOPE

Hope can be described in many ways. Hope has to do with the fundamental awareness that there is a way out of difficulty. It is about confidence that somehow we can make our way through something painful that is going on inside or outside of ourselves. A sense that there are solutions, that a different and better condition is possible.

Hope has to do with three basic ideas that are rather simple: What we hope for we do not have yet, a belief that what we hope for can actually happen and having hope is usually difficult. As Christians, we hope for something better because Jesus did and won it for us. Our hope is based on the victory of Jesus over the cross. His death on the cross was not the end of things. Through his death and resurrection Jesus conquered the death dealing power of sin and the finality of physical death.

Hope is kept alive by memory. This is why the Scriptures are central to us as Christians. They are all about remembering how God was with his people in the past to help us remember that God is with us now. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist which we celebrate in memory of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, nourishes our hope for future victory in the midst of adversity.

Hope is nourished by the memory of persons. Memorial Day which we observe this weekend, calls us to remember the courage, valor, conviction and generosity of men and women who literally gave their lives in service to our country so that we could live in freedom. It is about letting the memory of these incredible people from the past nourish our hope so that we will be better people now, in the present. We let their memory sustain the kind of hope within us that will move us from anger, bitterness, vengefulness and cynicism to being people of forgiveness, mercy, tolerance and peace.

Nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, we are grateful on Memorial Day 2016 for lives given in generous service to our country which can strengthen our hope for a future world at peace.

Together in faith,

Fr. Tuyen Nguyen, Vice-Rector           Fr. Christopher Smith, Rector