By Sister Maryanne Stevens
Jesus’ birth story in Matthew’s Gospel, although only a few paragraphs long, is filled with drama worthy of a television series. At every moment, there’s a cliff hanger and if we didn’t know the story so well, we might read a full sentence and truly wonder what will come next. Joseph is disturbed to discover his betrothed, Mary, is pregnant and has to decide whether to call off the engagement. Following a dream which tells him to marry her, Jesus is born in Bethlehem during the tenure of cruel King Herod. Wisdom figures tell the jealous, raging King of a bright star they are following, believing it is a sign foretelling the birth of a Messiah who will retake the land from the Romans. Herod orders all the baby boys throughout Judea to be killed in an effort to save his throne. Another dream calls Joseph to take the child and his mother to Egypt for safety. Joseph’s dreams were, quite simply, the stuff of faith, propelling him to hope.
Over and over again, our Scriptures call us to be moved in hope to change course, to reconsider that with which we have become accustomed and to search for a better home. This, of course, is what our migrant brothers and sisters have done by choosing to come to the United States. They, like Joseph and Mary, fled the violence in their home country in hopes of saving their children. I marvel at families I know who came from Venezuela. What gave them the strength to walk for months through the Darian Gap, across Central America and then to Mexico? What sustained them when threatened by robbers or shielding the eyes of their children from corpses along the path of those who dropped from exhaustion or lack of food and water? They journeyed forward believing in a dream. And, while the dream for some has been shattered by the violence they have found in their new home in the United States, they still hope. Indeed, Pope Leo has noted the resilience of migrants and referred to them as witnesses of hope.
Pope Francis called us to be pilgrims of hope and Pope Leo has said that hope means “swimming against the tide even in certain painful situations that appear to be hopeless.” Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality shared by the majority. It is not optimism; it does not take away the grief, anguish and fear. It is not about us as much as it is about God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of despair. God can make a new way out of no way. Light will overcome the darkness. This is the story of Joseph. This is the story of those who believe in a faithful God. This is our story.
How does hope manifest itself in your story? With whom do you walk the way of hope? What threatens to destroy your hope?
Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord!”