Hope.  Is there anything this world needs more?  With violence, atrocities and natural disasters filling the news every day, it sometimes feels hopeless and unbearable.  No wonder Pope Francis called for a Jubilee year of hope.  We need it.  No wonder he called for 2024 to be a year of prayer, to open our hearts to the possibility of hope.  “2024 will be dedicated to a great symphony of prayer”, he wrote.  “First of all, to recover the desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and adore him.  To put the need for a profound relationship with the Lord back at the centre of people’s lives.”

Hope – faith in a loving God in the midst of disasters – is not possible on a natural level.  It can only be received through grace, but grace which is implored on our knees.

In 2014, when Boko Haram was wreaking havoc in Nigeria, we were reading daily of unimaginable evil – kidnapping of schoolgirls, killings and mutilations, destruction of churches and villages.  One night I cried out to the Lord:  “I cannot take one more morning waking up to another atrocity.  I cannot bear it.  And yet I can’t close my eyes and ears to the suffering of my brothers and sisters.  I need to pray for them.  But where are you?!  I know you are a God of love and also of power, so why don’t you protect your innocent children?!”  I had come to the end of my faith and knew I had to receive a grace to continue to believe.

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Almost immediately, I came across a letter written by Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of the Diocese of Maiduguri, Nigeria, the epicentre of the Boko Haram.  That letter changed my life and saved my faith.  Incredulously, I read his words calling on his people to be consoled in the loving presence of God, of Mary and all the saints.  He acknowledged that they were all thoroughly devastated, wounded and traumatized by the attacks.  He admitted that he, too, had asked how God could allow such evil to seemingly triumph over good.  

But a tone of serene peace and even rejoicing permeated the letter, as he urged his people to pray, especially to pray the Rosary, and entrust their future to Our Lady and to Jesus.  He enjoined them to pray for the forgiveness of the terrorists, and for the grace to keep their eyes fixed on all of Heaven, including their family and friends who had been martyred.  He assured them that he and Our Lady were with them at the foot of their cross, even as they were hiding in caves and forests.  They were not alone.  He called on all his people to unite in prayer, trust and love.  

And this is what changed my life:  Bishop Doeme pointed out that Jesus experienced a similar sense of abandonment on the Cross, and the same silence from God in his innocent suffering. Only in the Resurrection was his cry answered.  The Bishop admitted that we will not hear a response to our questions now, and we will not be able to come up with an answer ourselves.  It is too far beyond our human comprehension.  But there will be a resurrection, when God’s loving plan is revealed.  If this Bishop, the spiritual father of his people, could ring out with authentic faith and trust, then I must also beg for this grace.  Ultimately it comes down to this:  Do I turn away from faith in a loving God because I don’t understand, or do I fall back on what I know to be true of Him, that He is a Divine Lover and always wills the fullness of life for us?  There will be an “ultimate reason” he allows this suffering, and I must put my trust in this – or die.

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Years later, I learned that Bishop Doeme had also fallen on his knees praying his daily Rosary, in anguish for his people.  Suddenly Christ appeared to him and handed him a sword, which turned into a Rosary when the bishop took it. Then he said three times, “Boko Haram is gone”.  That’s when the Bishop wrote his letter, urging his people to believe that God was with them, and to pray the Rosary in faith.  From that moment, Boko Haram started losing its power.

Pray the Rosary to counter evil?  Pray in trust from the bowels of a concentration camp? Pray to believe that the shambles of our world can possibly end in resurrection?  Simplistic.  Ridiculous.  Impractical.  

That’s what Naaman thought as well, when the prophet Elisha sent word for him to bathe seven times in the Jordan river, to be healed of his leprosy (2 Kings 5).  Naaman was insulted that Elisha didn’t speak to him personally but sent such a naïve “solution”.  However, when his servant urged him to try it since he was desperate, he stepped out in faith – and was healed and converted.

Simplistic?  Let me share a dream I had a few years ago:  it was the last day of an international symposium on the world’s problems.  Politicians, philosophers, activists, members of the entertainment world (notably Meryl Streep) were pondering possible solutions to the world’s agonies.  On the last afternoon, word went out that a treasure had been discovered that offered a solution to these global crises. With quiet excitement, the participants gathered in a great hall, while the King of the host country stood beside an enormous gold safe.  With great ceremony, he turned the dial on the safe, and the door slowly opened. 

I was on the far left of the room and couldn’t see what was inside, but as the delegates glimpsed the contents, they streamed out of the room in disappointment.  Finally, the door swung completely open, and the treasure began to emerge from the safe.  It was an enormous gold monstrance, and the majesty of the Lord filled the room.  I fell on my face in adoration.

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If we all fell on our faces in trust and worship of the living God, who loves us with a passion…if we all surrendered to him and his ways, praying in forgiveness, selflessness, adoration…if we allowed his saving power to flow through our hearts, the power of Love would be unleashed, washing the world clean.

This is not simplistic.  It demands the most courageous faith imaginable.  It will bring the joy that Bishop Doeme experienced, even while suffering still surrounds us.  We will then truly be pilgrims of hope.