Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 19 January 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

This week with the inauguration of the President of the United States, I imagine we will feel a nation divided. The popular vote was still so narrow that it is likely that we are a country divided right down the middle, not a good place to be.

Regardless of which side of the aisle we may be, there is one thing that we can consciously do to seek unity: hope. We can all hope for the best, for what is right, for what is God’s will and the humility of those assuming the responsibility of governing to listen to the Holy Spirit and seek the good of all people whose care is placed in their hands.

Pope Francis says that Christian hope is a gift from God that is based on the resurrection of Jesus. The possibility of things we even dare not for. It is openness to the possibility that the impossible is possible: all things are possible with God. It is also an active virtue that helps make good things happen.

You and I, by our human nature, are guided by natural virtues, also called Cardinal Virtues: justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence. They are natural, of our nature, and by them we recognize right from wrong, we become angry at injustice, we have the ability to complete the task at hand, and we have the common sense to apply all of these to life experiences to make good choices.

But with original sin, our human nature was damaged. We lost the indwelling Spirit of God and no longer had the certainty of goodness. Our weakness, our brokenness didn’t guarantee good outcomes and we needed an infusion of the Spirit of God to restore the balance.

The result? We just celebrated it: baptism. That Spirit returns, Sanctifying grace that transforms us into our original creation. The Church teaches that this is God’s gift, not a result of our earning it, something that doesn’t come from ourselves. It is supernatural, beyond our ability. In baptism we receive the supernatural, or theological, virtues which order us according to the mind of Christ. Our natural virtues are informed by that which is not experienced or deduced from human experience. These virtues are faith, hope, and love (charity). We walk by faith, and not by sight; we live in the hope of God’s good plan for us even when it may not be obvious to us; we love, even to the unnatural point of loving our enemies. We enter into the mind of Jesus himself with these gifts that sustain us through life’s challenges, knowing that there is always more to know, and we don’t know what we don’t know.

Hope is an active virtue that helps make good things possible. It is a sign which shines through acts of justice, solidarity, and charity. It is based on God’s promise of the future.

Pope Francis has dedicated the theme of the Jubilee Year 2025 “Pilgrims of Hope.”

Reflecting on Christian hope, Pope Francis writes in his new book, is especially important “in times like the ones we are living in, with a Third World War being fought ‘piecemeal,’ unfolding before our eyes. It can lead us to assume attitudes of gloomy discouragement and ill-concealed cynicism.”

Christian hope is not optimism, he wrote. Rather, it is “waiting for something that has already been given to us: salvation in God’s eternal and infinite love.”

Be on the lookout for hope; keep moving forward in faith, the pope writes, and love one another. The rest is passing controversy.

I found Pope Francis’ words to be powerful and I want you to share this message with anyone who is allowing themselves to be controlled by worry or discouragement, or uncertainty at this time. One thing we know for certain is that God is love, and he has chosen you for a purpose. And he knows what he is doing!

Starting each new day with an open heart to recognize this purpose is a way of discovering a new path in your life, a path that God has written into your being from before the foundation of the world.

The Lord be with you.