Hope
Jesus, risen
As a new teacher, I kept on feeling like any of my student’s mistakes was a direct result of my inadequacy. Everything felt so uncertain. Who was I going to be as a teacher? Who were these students going to be under my instruction? Will I ruin them?
In the midst of uncertainty, I longed for hope.
In hindsight, hope is a funny answer to uncertainty. Hope does not promise answers. Hope does not promise safety. Hope does not even promise our tomorrow.
Hope is the promise that
...whatever insecurities and standards we have,
...whatever burdens and crosses we bear,
...whatever sufferings we tenderly embrace,
...whatever service that we offer to others to alleviate their pain, God transforms it all. Hope moves us into a future that God has created with us and for us.
Death is no longer death but life. A cross is no longer feared but a passion. We are no longer alone but wholly embraced by God.
And with that hope, we pray the following prayer attributed to St. Oscar Romero.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.