The Monthly Note
November 2008
When hope is dying
by Fr. Jacques Lauzier, OP
The nature’s observer knows that after the infancy of spring and the golden youth of summer, the leaves will experience the agony of fall and the white death of winter. He also knows that a new spring will blossom. Thus the cycle of life continues and will move forward according to the order established by the Creator of all things.
It’s the same cycle for animal life, human life included. The smiles of childhood will give way to the first steps and the last diapers. Then will come the first pimples and the first loves. Then, with time, the white hair of old age will appear. A short time later will com the unknown of the after death. Where all is forgotten…and all is summed up.
The Christian knows that death is not the end, but the beginning. The beginning of «something» that he does not understand too well but that, because of faith, has the certainty. He will meet his Creator face to face. From Him, he will receive a life so intense and radiant that he has a hard time imagining it at the present time. He leaves it up to what the risen Jesus has unveiled. Because he is in communion with Him, he believes that he will share eternal life with Him.
For the non believer, life after life is not a question. For him, it’s nothingness, the great void. He chooses to consumption of the passing happiness, since there is nothing after the present time : « Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead » (1 Cor. 15, 32).
What is alarming these days is that many baptized have chosen that attitude. They live in ignorance of the most basic teachings of the Lord. They have lost all hope, in this life and in the one beyond death. Unfortunately, within these baptized without any real Christian roots, are many young people. Because they weren’t properly educated in their faith, they have a tendency to lock themselves in temporary pleasures offered by this society of consumption. For many, when heavy ordeals block their path, all that is left is discouragement…and suicide.
And this is where we, Christians, have to act. In addition, we have « be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you » (1 Peter 3,15), to those who have lost it…or that have never had it.
Let us take advantage of the month of November, when nature prepares itself to the death of winter, to awaken our own Hope and to make it known to those who do not know it. And let us not forget thatSaint-Jude is precisely the patron of Hope…when all seems lost.
Jacques Lauzier, Dominican
« For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him» (2 Timothy 2, 11)
