By: Michael Murphy, Ed.D.

Because finding sources of authentic hope can help us to persevere in confusing and dangerous times, we will be using this blog space to report on where and how people are finding hope these days and how they are using hope to help themselves and others. This is the first of a number of planned “hopecasts” that will be published as occasional pieces on the A Faith That Does Justice blog.

“We are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” [i]

There aren’t many blogs that get to start off with something written by a Pope, let alone something backed by a Papal decree, but our new blog can claim both. Just a few months ago, Pope Francis issued a decree entitled “Spes non confundit” (“Hope does not disappoint”). The decree is relevant to this blog because it suggests that acting with hope is something Christians are supposed to do and that if we do, it will actually help us and others to persevere in what feels like an increasingly dangerous world.

How dangerous? According to Brian McLaren, a leading Christian environmental advocate, “[We have] an intensifying and persistent sense of anxiety growing from the realization that we humans have made a mess of our civilization and it’s already too late for us to change fast enough to make a significant difference. It’s the feeling that catastrophe of some sort is inevitable, that we’re on the moving sidewalk to the end of the world.[ii] Or as the Pope put it, “… the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”[iii]

The purpose of the Pope’s decree is to show us how our faith’s teaching about hope can help:

Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril the sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35.37-39). Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life.[iv]

The Pope goes on to point out: “Saint Paul is a realist. He knows that life has its joys and sorrows, that love is tested amid trials, and that hope can falter in the face of suffering. Even so, he can write: ‘We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope’ (Rom 5:3-4).[v]

We hope that readers will share their experiences of hope at the margins of faith and justice so that we can keep the conversation going. Please send your thoughts to us at mmurphy@faith-justice.org

[i] Encyclical Letter, Spes non confundit, 2024,10

[ii] McLaren, Brian D. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 2). St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[iii] Encyclical Letter, Laudate Deum, 2023, 2

[iv] Spes non confundit, 3

[v] IBID. 4

Michael Murphy, Ed.D., is a staff psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Harvard Medical School.