Going through rough patches and dark periods is part of life.  I know this, of course, but every time I hit one of those rough patches, it throws me for a bit of a loop.  I remember that a year ago last fall was one of those times.  The cause this time? It was the election season, which highlighted Catholic infighting; It was uncertainty about the economy; It was my own personal grief at my grandmother's death; It was merely the constant concerns that come with having a job and caring for a family.  It was all of those together and it made for a series of several months where life seemed rather bleak.

 

Of course I knew that in comparison with places where people fear for their lives or suffer very terrible injustices, my own bleakness was very very small - yet no less real for the way it colored my day-to-day living.  In those moments, especially, it can be hard to feel hopeful and live in hopeful ways.  But I also knew that hanging on to hope was important and necessary, for me and also for my family.

 

Today's scriptures remind me of those kinds of rough patches.  Both passages speak of current or impending bleakness, perhaps even despair.  In the first reading the prophet Haggai (2:1-9) notes the peoples' experience of current bleakness.  Haggai suggests that the people remember fondly their former days of glory, but now experience the hardships that come with being ruled over by foreign despots.  Haggai attempts to infuse hope into his discussion by stating that God promises to restore Israel's former glory "in a little while."

 

This story is told somewhat in the reverse in today's gospel (Luke 9:18-22).  Jesus asks his disciples who the people say he is, and Peter answers: "The Christ of God."  This kind of statement would ordinarily have been a hopeful one...especially for a people who longed to see the Roman authorities overthrown.  Yet Jesus "rebukes" his disciples and tells them not to tell anyone else who he is.  In other words - do NOT have a hope in Jesus if your hope is that he will overthrow earthly kingdoms.  Then in the very next verses, Jesus tells his disciples how he will die.  As a tiny glimmer of hope, he also tells them that he will be raised on the third day but ultimately, the picture Jesus offers of himself is not the picture we would have wanted. 

 

The difficulty is that if the disciples are to be hopeful, it will be because they realize that Jesus points to a different understanding of hope than the versions of hope society holds out.  Saint Vincent de Paul, whom we remember today, is someone who recognized the different kind of hope that Christians have, even in the face of abject despair.  He was kidnapped by pirates and held in slavery; later he used those experiences to care for other slaves, and for people in poverty.  He practiced hope even in places that seemed hopeless and he is a model for me and for others who need examples of people who practice hope.

 

Today, let us practice this hope of God and be hope in a world that often has a different view of hope.  

 

- Jana M. Bennett