Tag Archives: Hope

May 18, 2025 · 8:52 AM

A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 3

The deepest, happiest, most beautiful reality for us, for those we love, has yet to come.

My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he fell ill and was hospitalized. It makes me wonder if he knew his end was near and the flock would need guidance during these difficult times we are experiencing.

It’s an exceptional book. Pope Francis tells his history, his background, and always ties the past into the relevance of following Christ and taking our faith into the world. Hope is a book I will keep on my shelf. I will add it to my essential reading list to reread at least every five years.

As I type this, we have a new pope! Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope. I’m very hopeful and excited to witness and participate in, as Pope Leo XIV preached in his first homily of his inaugural mass, a plea for unity, peace, and a missionary spirit. With the words of Father James Martin of the Jesuit Order, when asked to define Pope Francis’s lasting legacy. Fr. Martin thought for a few seconds and said Pope Francis’s greatest legacy is that he lived in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis walked the Christian walk. His whole life was dedicated to living his faith both inside and outside the physical church. He lived his faith above and beyond the strict ceremonies and procedures as Jesus himself did. Christianity is a living faith. Christianity is a community. To live as Christians, we must all follow Pope Francis’s spirit and walk with Jesus Christ among our brothers and sisters from the least to the greatest.

I highlighted four quotes from the book that hit hard. Here’s the third in which Pope Francis addresses the power of hope and prayer in living the Christian life. When I look around the world and our country now, we all could use a recharge to what Jesus called us to do and to be as His followers.

Be sure of it: The deepest, happiest, most beautiful reality for us, for those we love, has yet to come. Even if some statistic tells you the opposite, even if tiredness weakens your powers, never lose this hope that cannot be beaten. Pray with these words, and if you are unable to pray, murmur them to yourself, do it even if your faith is weak, murmur it until you believe it, murmur it also to those in despair, to those with little love: The best wine has yet to be served.
So long as we continue to find cheer in the gaze of a child and in the infinite possibilities of goodness, so long as we allow mercy to dwell within us, everything will always be possible. Clinging to the anchor of hope, we can say with the lines of the poet Nâzim Hikmet,

The most beautiful sea
hasn’t been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child
hasn’t grown up yet.
Our most beautiful days
we haven’t seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven’t said yet…

A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 2.

Build a better future by building a better now.

As I type this, I am watching Pope Francis’s funeral procession through the streets of Rome, and I am struck by the words of Father James Martin of the Jesuit Order when asked to define Pope Francis’s lasting legacy. Fr. Martin thought for a few seconds and said Pope Francis’s greatest legacy is that he lived in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

I highlighted four quotes from the book that hit hard. Here’s the second in which Pope Francis addresses the fundamental task of a Christian to build a better future by building a better now.

It occurs to me that young people never run the risk described in the Gospel of Luke: “Woe to you when all speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). But above all that, instead of judging or complaining, each generation is called upon to not ignore its crucial challenge: that of educating. The fundamental task that is required of men and women is to make good use of their time on earth and to build the future. In the words of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who I met in Assisi in September 2016, when he was already ninety, and who gave me valuable food for thought, especially in his analysis of the “liquid society”: “If you are thinking about the next year, plant corn; if you are thinking about the next ten years, plant a tree; but if you are thinking about the next hundred years, educate.”

Cultivate Hope

Hope. It’s big. It’s one of those things that make us human, one of those things that drive us. Hope helps us get out of bed every day to face our challenges.

As a coach, the most important thing I can do for the kids in the program is to cultivate hope. I want to sow an environment with an expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen, a goal to obtain, i.e. HOPE. Show up every day, to every practice, every meeting, every game dealing hope. Make this hope permeate everything we do as a team and as a program.

And this is not just important for coaches to deal in hope. It’s even more important for:

Teachers
Writers
Political leaders
Manager
Supervisors
CEO’s

Anybody who leads people needs to radiate hope. It doesn’t matter if you deal with one person or one hundred people, cultivate hope. It doesn’t even matter if you are just dealing with your own self, be hopeful.

I’ve seen hopeless. I’ve seen the hopelessness settle into a long losing streak or miserable season. I’ve seen the dull, lifeless eyes of hopelessness standing on a mid-afternoon street corner passing a bottle. The hopelessness which exists in poverty, substance abuse, mental abuse, and physical abuse.

The black cloud of hopelessness works to settle over our world on a daily basis. Hopelessness with the sole purpose to suck the life and energy from us. It is up to us as leaders to wage war on hopelessness by cultivating hope in everything we do.

Everyone, especially young people, need someone to believe they can do whatever task stands in front of them. They need hopeful eyes to help them see the person they can be. They need a ray of hope to help them fight the black clouds which follow them waiting for an open space to inhabit.

Hope is cheap.
Hope is infectious.
Hope is a super power.
Sow it, cultivate it, and spread it.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

-Emma Lazarus, 1883

For Martin Luther King, Jr. day 2012, remember how and why our great country came to be. Remember what this great country should stand for and what we will always stand for.

We are the melting pot. We are the hope. We are America.

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Tagged as America, Emma Lazarus, Hope, Liberty, melting pot, The New Colossus, Tolerance