Hope Now?

May 27

Recently, I was in a meeting with the staff of Live Jesus Ministries, a ministry of the Oblate of St. Francis de Sales. As part of our check-in, I was asked, “Where is your hope today?”

This question opened a door for me and allowed me to connect with something new the Holy Spirit is doing in my life.

Over the past seven weeks, I have found myself recognizing my brother John in people I encounter. As I’ve written before, John died suddenly in 2020 from a pulmonary embolism. I believed I had grieved his death, moved through the stages of mourning, and checked it off my list. Yet now, I keep recognizing him in the people I meet.

And something more is happening.

As I listen to these individuals who resemble John in one way or another, I feel a tenderness rising in me as they speak about hopelessness, anxiety, mental health struggles, and pain. It is as though the Holy Spirit is injecting into my heart a compassion I was not able to offer my brother when he was alive.

What is happening here?

My relationship with John was not marked by tenderness on my part. Too often, I held onto anger, judgment, and old wounds. So why is the Holy Spirit bringing this forward now? Why awaken compassion in me through people who remind me of him? Why invite tenderness where there was once only hurt?

Where is my hope today?

My hope… The Holy Spirit is still at work healing a relationship, even after death.

Healing can happen after death. Death is not an obstacle to God. Our faith has always made room for this mystery. As St. Francis said: “The holy unity that God has wrought is stronger than all separations.” We even have a tradition of healing after death, which we call it purgatory.

I’ve always believed in healing like this, but I’ve never known healing like this.

In my mind, consumed with productivity, this action of the Holy Spirit appears wasteful. It is not something I would have chosen, but it is powerful and real. Today, it is the source of my hope.

May God be Praised!