Geoff Stevenson
I wonder what it is that gets you out of bed in the morning? What is it that gets you up and into the day – at least most days? I have known some people at particular points in their lives when there has been nothing. These people feel absolute despair and darkness for significant periods of their lives. Sadly, some have even taken their lives because of the hopelessness they feel within.
It is this sense of hope versus hopelessness that makes the difference. If all we feel is anxiety, pessimism or depression, then hope seems far off and motivation to get out of bed, to live and to enjoy life or believe in something more, is impossible. Hope is something we all need and something we all seek out, consciously and unconsciously. Hope comes in many shapes and sizes; it has many faces and many sources. Some of these sources provide genuine hope and others are superficial. When we place our hope in something superficial, what happens when it fails us? So much of what our modern society places its hope in is not sustainable or enduring. Fame, fortune and power are three of the big ones, yet so many people have tried these and found them wanting. Even a quick flick through some of the popular magazines shows the futility of so much of that in which our society hopes. Hollywood stars have fame and fortune, everything that many people yearn for or lust after. If these things are so enduring and hope-filled, why are so many of these successful stars so messed up, drug-addicted and seemingly hopeless? Why do so many need therapy and rehabilitation? Why do they continue to seek something more?
I look at many of these people and others who are idolised and hero-worshipped and wonder why they seem so lost, so hopeless?
Hope is essential to life itself. It is a vital ingredient in mental, spiritual and physical health and personal well-being. Hope enables us to endure whatever life throws at us. It isn’t a ’sunny optimism’ that tomorrow will be better. It is a firm and enduring belief that we will be okay, whatever happens! All hope has a source. For all of us as young children, our parents are a large source of our hope. The stability, love, protection, security and provision they offer, gives us hope. As we grow we need more than parents can offer, more than anyone one person can offer. There are many things that compete for our attention, our hope, our trust and belief.
There are various ideologies and belief systems; political ideologies; education; financial success and material prosperity; power – personal or positional; career and so on. These things offer some degree of security in our lives. Money can purchase things we need and more. Power gives us a sense of control over our own lives and even other people and situations. Ideologies and belief systems are also a means of control but also a means of categorising the world and defining people, ideas and our place in the world. Politics, education, career and so on help us to have some level of control, achieve something significant, raise our self esteem and make us feel better about ourselves and life in general. These are all things we draw hope from or, rather, place our hope in!
The big question, however, is what happens to this hope when we experience the cataclysmic moments of life? What happens when we experience something that breaks through the veneer of our hope and makes demands that are too great? What happens when we encounter tragedy or crisis in health or employment or finance? What happens when something we have ‘pinned our hopes on’ fails us?
St Francis’ prayer leads us to a deeper hope that finds its foundation in God, who is bigger and more profound than anything our minds or ideologies can contain. God is immensely larger than all we can imagine and it is in God that Francis invites us to hope!
For Francis, hope depends not on what we can do or own but on God. Francis had an ‘unsinkable hope in God, [he was] unshakably confident that God would do good, that God would bring everything to its good end, that the future rests securely in God’s hands.’ Whatever life could throw at him, nothing could separate him from God’s love and ultimately God would hold him in Divine love and grace, in this world and the next! Such hope liberates us from fear and enables us to live boldly and to freely love with abandon!
Francis prayed for perfect charity. Charity means love, grace, free mercy. This prayer is for love – both to receive and experience and to love generously. That is how Francis is remembered – as one who knew the deep and profound love of God intimately within his own life, a love that set him free from all other dependencies. He was also liberated to love others with wonderful generosity and to share freely with all in need.
The essence of Christian faith, especially as proclaimed by Jesus and lived by people such as Francis, is love. God is the source of love and the essence of God is love. This is not some mushy, soft love that we see in popular novels, songs and movies. It is hard, tough love that seeks the very best for another. God’s love is for us in a way that seeks the very best for us, that we might become the very best we can be; to be who we were created to be! This enables us to love others - especially the unlovable!
Francis experienced several conversions in his life, one of which was to see those he feared and recoiled from, as lovable – lepers! Francis was nauseated at the sight of lepers, who suffered horrific skin disease and were rejected from society. He said, ‘The Lord led me among them and I showed them mercy. When I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body.’ He began to care for lepers and in these people who were despised and from whom he had recoiled, he discovered the will of God, who loved these and all people and wants all to love deeply and be deeply loved.
The will of God is to love, especially the unlovable, ‘the lepers’ and to discover in them the love and peace of God. Perfect charity, then is the endless journey into a deeper commitment to love other people in the manner of Jesus. It involves sacrifice and a radical reorientation of our lives and priorities. It also reveals how deeply we are loved and forms a community of the loved, in which there is freedom, hope, peace, truth and life.
Jean Vanier, a French-Canadian who served and loved people with severe disabilities, says:
‘To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude, “You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.” We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.’
Francis knew that loving others was the will of God and revealed the love of God! We are invited into this life of hope and love!

A reminder that St Francis’ prayer is:
Most high, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me, Lord,
correct faith, firm hope,
perfect charity,
wisdom and perception,
that I may do what is truly your most holy will.