The New Year poses a unique and critical challenge to all who profess the Christian faith and who strive to live, work and pray in hope for the establishment of God’s reign of Life. In 2025, we Christians – and others who wish to join in – are invited to celebrate two important events: the Jubilee Year convened by Pope Francis, and the tenth anniversary in May of the papal encyclical Laudato Si’ – On the Care of our Common Home.
The reality and imperative of Hope in the present time is at the heart of both. From a Christian standpoint they ought to be seen as intertwined and inseparable. It would surely be incoherent to proclaim Christian hope in this time of ecological emergency and not engage with Laudato Si’s core invitation to hear the Cry of the Poor and the Cry of the Earth. And there is the contingent issue of finding a new paradigm through which humanity, the planet, and all living species can live with dignity and hope in a new mutuality. Any honest quest for a hope-filled future must face the ecological threats outlined by Pope Francis.
The virtue of Christian Hope
We need to understand hope from a dual perspective. Firstly, viewed as a theological virtue, hope emanates from God’s love. God is both the source and end of our hope. Ultimately, hope is a gift, a ‘grace’ mediated to us through the relationship of faith. Secondly, hope both draws us and impels us to witness in explicit and radical ways to God’s ongoing action and promise revealed throughout history and the promise of new and abundant life (Jn 10:10).
We are called to act with hope in situations of life even when human hope seems absent. As the Gospels remind us, when we act in a life-giving way, then we find life. When we act in hope, with and for others, we find hope. In this sense, hope is a faith-inspired action and not merely a spiritual desire.
Christian hope and human optimism cannot be equated. Optimism is largely a temporal sentiment, assuming that things will work out in a positive manner. In contrast, Christian hope is grounded in our relationship with the divine and requires to be integrated in our lives and acted upon.
Laudato Si’ a ‘call’ and a ‘pilgrimage of hope’
The promulgation of Laudato Si’ and its incorporation into the Church’s Social Teaching is a sign and a source of Christian hope. We find a profound clamour of Hope, an urgent call to assess, analyse and seek to resolve society’s multi-layered crises, which are visiting so much calamity on the Earth and upon the poor.
Pope Francis lays out in a studied and scientific manner the dramatic and deadly dimensions of the ecological and social crisis facing us all. And he invites us to find hope and spiritual resolve in the ultimate connectedness and communion of all life forms in and through our Creator God, who does not abandon us. Pope Francis presents a ‘route-map’ towards renewed hope, to be achieved through a comprehensive reordering of our relationships with respect to God, as source and origin of our biodiverse reality; to the Earth as our common home; and to the varied expressions of human culture.
This reordering, in the mind of the Pope, requires a paradigm shift away from an anthropocentric mindset with regard to all life on Earth. It involves developing a culture of ‘integral ecology’, an embracing of ‘ecological conversion’ and an openness to an ongoing inter-disciplinary dialogue.
Pilgrims of Hope
Laudato Si’ is a hope-filled and inspiring reflection on the ecological emergency facing us all. To be Pilgrims of Hope we must seek and act with others, relying upon all our faith and creativity, implementing the spirit and programme of Laudato Si’. There can be no ecological hope without ecological action. Prophetic reflection, such as we find in the encyclical, articulates the ‘call’ and sets out the task, but the urgent action needed is down to each one of us as faithful pilgrims. James the Apostle, in his epistle, reminds us that faith without works is totally dead. And so too with hope. To be true Pilgrims of Hope we need to be activists for ecological hope!
