The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Difficult times: the spring of hope or the winter of despair?

(En Espanol)

The great English novelist Charles Dickens famously begins his novel set in London and Paris during the period leading up to the French Revolution with the words:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (A Tale of Two Cities)

Does anyone doubt that we live in similar times? From one perspective, enormous progress has been made in nearly every field of human endeavor, suggesting that we are experiencing a “spring of hope.” But from another equally valid point of view, millions of people remain in poverty, the victims of war, injustice, and a bitter “winter of despair.” As Christians, what should our response be to the difficult times we are living in today?

Pope Francis’ homily on Nov. 13, the World Day of the Poor, responds as follows:

Let us take to heart the clear and unmistakable summons in the Gospel not to be led astray. Let us not listen to prophets of doom. Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions. Let us not follow the false “messiahs” who, in the name of profit, proclaim recipes useful only for increasing the wealth of a few, while condemning the poor to the margins of society. Instead, let us bear witness. Let us light candles of hope in the midst of darkness. Amid dramatic situations, let us seize opportunities to bear witness to the Gospel of joy and to build a fraternal world, or at least a bit more fraternal. Let us commit ourselves courageously to justice, the rule of law and peace, and stand always at the side of the weakest. Let us not step back to protect ourselves from history, but strive to give this moment of history, which we are experiencing, a different face.

The pope’s admonition, “Let us not step back to protect ourselves from history,” speaks directly to our role in the unfolding drama of hope and despair. If we are passive or uncaring in the face of the world’s evils, then we are guilty of the sin of indifference which Pope Francis observed, during the height of the pandemic, is a greater evil than COVID-19.

If we are able to overcome our indifference in the face of the crises we are facing in health care, poverty, social justice, wars and the economy, what courses of action can we take to make our world “at least a bit more fraternal”? Pope Francis believes that we can do something good even when our situation in life is not ideal. He says:

It is a skill typically Christian not to be a victim of everything that happens—a Christian is not a victim, and the psychology of victimhood is not good, it is harmful—but to seize the opportunity that lies hidden in everything that befalls us, the good—however small—that can come about even from negative situations. Every crisis is a possibility and offers opportunities for growth. Every crisis is an openness to the presence of God, openness to humanity. But what does the spirit of evil want us to do? He wants us to turn crisis into conflict, and conflict is always closed in, without a horizon; a dead-end. No. Let us experience a crisis like human persons, like Christians, let us not turn it into conflict, because every crisis is a possibility and offers opportunities for growth. 

The world thrives on conflict—reported hourly in the media—and our human tendency is to categorize everything as either black or white as we take refuge in opposing red or blue camps. But the Holy Father tells us that there is a significant difference between conflict, which is a dead-end, and crisis, which can present us with new possibilities and opportunities for growth.

The choice is ours. We can remain indifferent or we can accept the “difficult times” that we live in as grace-filled moments of opportunity. As Pope Francis sees things, our course of action is clear: “Let us light candles of hope in the midst of darkness.”
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †