Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again 

I had a friend mention that she was feeling like Humpty Dumpty lately. Fallen off the wall (presumably the one that feels steady and foundational) and feeling broken, cracked and injured and without hope. 

I think a lot of us feel this way lately, some not sure why and others may know why, what or who to blame.  Either way, we can recognize these feelings and examine them in the light of the Holy Spirit. (Come Holy Spirit!) 

One mistake we can all make is placing our hope in man, just like Humpty Dumpty (or the people who found him) tried to do.  Even though they were the "king's men", they couldn't fix him. How often do I look to other people to fill in the holes that can't be filled by people or things? 

Our prayer team just finished studying Pope Frances’ Catechesis on Hope. It’s a collection of messages from different audiences Pope Francis has held that have to do with hope.

We each chose a chapter or two to present to the group. Most of us chose randomly by the attraction of the title, but I have included a few quotes here that were not presented by a member of our team.

We concluded in resolution to pray with four of the images of hope that were given to us in this document. We also agreed that when we were feeling discouraged this week (Holy Week!) we would say “Jesus, increase my hope” ten times. I will share these images and some of our notes with you too, so you can pray with them and think about the hope you can hold on to in rough times, especially if you are feeling a little like Humpty Dumpty yourself.

The Anchor

I liked chapter 20’s title because it spoke to me of one of God’s promises, and God cannot break promises because He is truth itself.

“I am with you always, to the end of the world”
(Mt 28:20): the promise that gives hope

Title of chapter 20

Pope Francis begins this chapter reminding us that we are on a journey and God is with us until the end of the age and that we need not rely on rely on ourselves to fix everything (and everyone?) around us.

It expresses the notion that our hope
is not vague; it is not to be confused with the uncertain sentiment of those who wish to improve the things of this world in an unrealistic way, relying only on their own willpower.

Chpt 20; Pope Francis: General audience of 26 April 2017

He goes on to explain what having that an anchor is one of his favorite images of hope and what that looks like for us as Christians…

We have anchored our life in heaven. What do we have to do? Hold fast to the rope: it is always there. And we go forward because we are certain that our life has an anchor in heaven, on that shore where we will arrive.

Of course, if we trusted only in our strengths, we would have reason to feel disappointed and defeated, because the world often shows itself immune to the laws of love. It prefers, so often, the laws of selfishness. But if the certainty survives in us that God does not abandon us, that God loves us and this world tenderly, then it immediately changes our perspective.

Much of embracing the virtue of hope has to do with our perspective as we read through the document. When we experience difficulties and know what do to with suffering, especially when we realize we are accompanied on our journey of faith by a loving Father, then we have hope.

With this promise, Christians can walk everywhere. Even passing through parts of the wounded world, where things are not going well, we are among those who still continue to hope.

Our image of hope from Pope Frances doesn’t end with the anchor, as he alludes in this chapter to another image he suggests, a more common one but often overlooked even though it is around the altar keeping vigil to remind us; the candle.

The Psalm says: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me” (23[22]:4). It is precisely where darkness is rife that a light must be kept burning.

The Candle

To be Christian means not starting from death, but rather, from God’s love for us which has defeated our most bitter enemy. God is greater than nothingness, and a lit candle is enough to overcome the darkest of nights. Echoing the prophets, Paul cries, “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”(v. 55).

The Risen Christ, our hope (cf. 1 Cor 15)
General audience of 19 April 2017

We had a beloved priest, Fr William, who would always open his talk on our “Advent by Candlelight” evenings of reflection with the image of a candle. He would say something like, “Imagine in a room of complete and total darkness. You can see nothing. Then, someone lights one tiny candle. The light from that tiny flame would be so bright it would overcome that darkness in the room. All it takes is one tiny light”, he would remind us. We need to be the light, and we need to be the hope in the world.

There is then another very beautiful sign of the baptismal liturgy that reminds us of the importance of light. At the end of the Rite, the parents — if it is a child — or the baptized themselves — if they are adults — are consigned a candle, whose flame is lit from the Paschal
Candle. It is a large candle that on Easter night enters the completely dark church, to demonstrate the mystery of Jesus’ Resurrection; from that candle everyone lights their own candle and passes the flame on to those nearby: in that sign is the slow propagation of the Resurrection of Jesus in the lives of all Christians.

The life of the Church — I will say a rather strong word — is contagious light. The more light of Jesus we Christians have, the more light of Jesus there is in the life of the Church, the more alive she is. The life of the Church is the contagion of light.

Chapter 29: Baptism, the gateway to hope
General audience of 2 August 2017

He states in another chapter that Our Lady, the Blessed Mother of God, Mary, shows us the way to be a light in the darkness. She was the first Christian; the first to know God was incarnate, and yet, she was fully human. She had to lean into God with full trust and dependence, even after her only son left the earth.

Mary “stood by”; she was simply there. Here again the young woman of Nazareth, hair now grayed with the passage of time, still struggling with a God who must only be embraced, and with a life that has come to the threshold of the darkest night. Mary “stood by” in the thickest darkness, but she “stood by”. She did not go away. Mary is there, faithfully present, each time a candle must be held aflame in a place of fog and haze.

chapter 21: Mother of hope
General audience of 10 May 2017

Mary shows us how to hold the candle.

The Pep Rally

Our team leader “KL TL” I call her, had the chapter on saints. She said she had an image that we always have a huge pep rally cheering for us in all that we do.

She had a friend who introduced her to our praying friends in heaven, the saints, and all the various ways they accompany us. Just like our praying friends on earth, they are rooting for us! They have the advantage of looking on the face of God and interceding for us (a back stage pass if you will), and they have been where we are in many ways. Our saint friends have special areas in which they can intercede, and so gathering a “team” for yourself to know and call on often is a great tool for increasing your spiritual journey. Again reminding us of the beauty of baptism, Pope Frances reminds us:

On the day of Baptism the invocation of the saints echoed around us. Many of us were infants in that moment, carried in the arms of our parents. Shortly before the anointing with the Oil of Catechumens, the
symbol of God’s strength in the fight against evil, the priest invited the entire assembly to pray for those who were about to receive Baptism, invoking the intercession of the saints.

That was the first time in which, in the course of our lives, we were given this gift of the companionship of “big” brothers and sisters — the saints — who had taken this same path before us, who knew the same struggles and who live forever in God’s embrace. The Letter to the Hebrews defines this company which surrounds us with the expression: “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). So are the saints: a great cloud of witnesses.

Chapt 27: The saints are witnesses and companions in hope General audience of 21 June 2017

The Almond Tree

The final image of hope that we chose to pray with this week (certainly not the last in the document) is the Almond Tree. I think this is my personal favorite, as a lover of trees. Of course I immediately searched for images of flowering almond trees and began to sketch them. Here is an excerpt from the chapter 33, picked by our team teacher and gardener “Lala”.

Never think that the struggle you engage in here on earth is completely useless. Ruin does not await us at the end of life. A seed of the absolute is beating within us. God does not disappoint: if he has placed hope in our hearts, he does not want to crush it with continuous
frustrations. Everything is born to flourish in an eternal Spring.

God also created us to flourish. I remember that dialogue, when the oak tree asks the almond tree: ‘Speak to me about God’. And the almond tree
blossomed.

Chapter 33:Educating in hope
General audience of 20 September 2017