Threesome: Caught in Christ's Net

“Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.” Luke 5:3

James:  Peter, what were you thinking when you saw Jesus get into your boat?

Peter: I don’t remember. I was busy with the nets, just like you. I wasn’t thinking about him at all.

James: That’s my point! There you are, getting the nets in order with the rest of us, and he comes along. So you drop everything to attend to him. Didn’t that bother you?

Peter: Like I said, I never thought about it. Why are you bothering me? You do what he tells you to do just like I do. Why ask me about him? 

John. Don’t get mad, Peter. James is not attacking you. We’re trying to figure out our answer to that same question:  why do we do what he wants, just like you do?

Peter: I’m not mad.  Well, maybe I am. I’m mad at… at the question, because, well, I don’t know the answer. Believe me, I’ve thought about it.

James: You have?

Peter: Of course. There were other boats along the shore, and other guys cleaning and fixing their nets. He had a nodding acquaintance with all of them, so why pick me? He knew me, but he didn’t know me any better than he knew anyone else.

John: So, think about it: first he gets into your boat, and then he asks you to move him back from the shore a little so he can talk to everyone.  Did that irritate you?

Peter: Yes! Yes it did. I remember thinking that he was trying to push me around and act like my boss. I felt like telling him I was busy, and he could row himself out a little if he wanted.

James:  So, why didn’t you? In fact, why didn’t you tell him to get out of your boat, or tell him he had no right to get in it to begin with?

Peter: My mouth couldn’t say those words to him! I suppose I would have said that to anyone else who tried to take over my boat and use it, but no, I didn’t dare do that with him.John: Why not?

Peter: I don’t know. Maybe it was the way he spoke to me and looked at me. I mean, he was in the boat already. And he was polite enough in asking me to move him offshore a little. It didn’t sound like he was being demanding or anything like that. In fact, if I had said to him, ‘Do it yourself’, or ‘Hey, find another boat’, I think he would have done that.

John: Another thing, in addition to talking to you: you said it was the way he looked at you. How did he look at you?

Peter:  With those eyes that see right through you. Know what I mean? 

John: Oh yes. What did you feel when he was looking at you?

Peter: I don’t know. It… made me feel uncomfortable but…it felt good too. I didn’t feel afraid. In fact, I felt like he was doing me a favor by asking me to get in the boat with him. Isn’t that weird? Why should I feel like that? I wouldn’t have felt that way with one of you instead of him.

James: We know what you mean. His eyes are like everyone else’s, but the way they see into you is so different, right? It’s indescribable. I mean, the effect he has when he looks us in the eye, there’s no way to explain that, right John?

John (nodding): That’s why we were asking you about it, Peter, to see if you noticed it too.

Peter: Yes, I noticed it. I just don’t like to talk about it!

James:  Why not? John and I talk about him all the time.

Peter: Well, Andrew and I discuss it sometimes too.

James: John says he can see into our souls.

John: And his looking into us is penetrating, right? But it doesn’t feel like an invasion. He’s not trying to intimidate us or show us he is he is more powerful than we are.  His looking is a caring.

Peter:  I know, I know. But I don’t like it. 

John: Why?

Peter: I’m not sure. I guess his look makes me feel like running away and hiding. When he is looking into me and through me, I feel like I don’t measure up. I just want to get away from him. 

John: But once you let him look in, you are hooked right?

Peter: I guess! The more I think about it the less I understand it. I can’t refuse him anything, even when I want to tell him to leave me alone and let me be! You know what I thought when he told me ‘to put out into deep water’? I thought I should never have let you into the boat.

James: That’s funny! Even though you were still at the shore, you were in deep water as soon as you started dealing with him! Hah! 

Peter: Don’t laugh! You’re over your head when you’re dealing with him too.

John:  We’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing with you!  You’re right! The same thing happens to us! We’re over our heads in deep water even when we stand with him on land! It’s normal. Look, it also happened a second time to you right after the first.

Peter: Huh? How?

John:  Well, when he asks you to push off shore a little so he can talk to everyone, your first impulse is to say no, but you say yes. Next he tells you to set out for deeper waters to fish, and you want to say no, and you even tell him that you have been fishing all night, but in the end you go and do it anyway!

Peter:  You’re right. I don’t know why I let him take me over like that.  It does work out for the better for me when I do, but I still don’t like it. 

James: It’s weird, isn’t it? Why do we feel that way, even when we are better off for it?

John: I think it is because our pride is hurt, and because it shows we are not independent and in control, even though we think we are. 

Peter:  I think that’s right. It hurts my pride to see how superior he is. But there is something more that I am starting to see.

James: What’s that?

Peter: How I felt after I pulled in all those fish.  I felt a rush of different things. I was thrilled, surprised, ashamed, confused, I wanted to jump out of the boat and swim away, and at the same time I wanted to fall at his feet and ask him to forgive me.  I wanted to disappear so I wouldn’t have to face him again, and I wanted him to hug me and tell me he wasn’t mad at me. And you know what? He knew all that was going on in me.  He looked at me and said: Don’t be afraid. I felt there was nothing I could hide from him, and suddenly it didn’t matter, because I didn’t need to hide anything anymore.

John laughing: We’re all in the same boat! His, not ours!

Clericalism: The Elephant in the Parlor

A blog about hunting, marriage, family life, authentic environmentalism, and God in suburbia.

• Home
• The Beginning
• Recommended Pages

An airing of concerns: 

(This posting from thesuburbanhunter is reprinted on my blog because it addresses the issue of Clericalism with refreshing honesty.

Clericalism is a huge but unattended problem in the Church. To attend to the problem, we have to stop denying its existence, face it squarely, and start putting into words what we see. The experience is akin to exploring a new territory without a map. You draw the map as you go along, learning the right direction to go in after following paths that lead nowhere. 

Truth has a way of revealing itself to us when we allow it to take us over.)

This entry has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. I wrote the below entry in the wake of the Msgr. Wallin scandal breaking in the Diocese of Bridgeport. Compared to the open airing of the Church's documents in the Archdiocese of LA, that is small potatoes. However, more mistakes are being made, including right now in New Jersey, and the unhealthy root cause of these issues is not being addressed. The unhealthy root cause of the issue is the clerical culture of the Church, which is at this time dysfunctional, and the problem needs to be addressed with bravery and honesty. My words mean very little. In fact, they mean nothing. However, I feel many faithful Catholics are feeling this way, and we need the courage to say it.

Clericalism and Msgr. Wallin

The demands of an authentic and healthy love require us, when we see dysfunction in those we love, to speak out. Now, in the Church, is one of those times. Now in the society at large is one of those times. There are too many irresponsible voices, too much noise, and not enough discernment and careful thought. It is time for change.

The vast majority of the priests in this state (and everywhere) are amazing men. I in no way wish to cause them pain, and my concerns are not in any way about them.  My concern involves a problem bigger than us all.  This problem materialized most recently in the sad story of Msgr. Wallin in the Diocese of Bridgeport, but the problem has a history which stretches back to many cases of tragically ignored, denied, or hidden abuse of minors by priests. However, it is not just about sex abuse, which has been thankfully been tamped down. It is also about finances, and Church governance, and the role of the laity.

How could problems or hints of serious things amiss among our clergy be ignored, or if not ignored, somehow tragically mishandled, again?  And again? And again? 

I believe that clericalism is at the core of our dysfunctional response to these challenges.

What is clericalism? Does it exist? Is it a problem? As lay people do we even have a right to think about it, let alone write about it?  Are we lay people a part of the problem, somehow unhealthily relating to and encouraging a dysfunctional ecclesial environment?

I think the answer to these questions is that yes, clericalism most certainly does exist. Yes, it is probably the greatest challenge facing the Church in the United States today. As lay people we participate in it and even thrive on it in a codependent and dysfunctional way, so we not only have a right, but a duty, to think about it, name it, and write about it. If we don't we will simply continue to see scandal heaped on scandal until the Church's message and witness to the culture becomes entirely irrelevant.

Let's begin with what clericalism is not. Clericalism is not the teaching authority of the Church, nor is it the role of bishops as successors to the apostles, nor is it the sacramental character of the Church. That authority is essential to a healthy Christian understanding of the world, and it centrally important to the functioning of the Church. We cannot do well in the world apart from the body of Christ, which is the Church. Neither is clericalism the notion that priests are changed by virtue of their ordination. Clericalism is not the male only priesthood, which is something the Popes have said is ordained by Christ and impossible to change.

The constant demands to change these things (which have been ongoing since 1400AD) have perhaps made the Church increasingly defensive. It may be this defensiveness that has given rise to the thing called clericalism that is doing such damage. In and of themselves however, clericalism they are not.

If the aforementioned characteristics of the Church are not clericalism, then what is?  Clericalism is the viewpoint that priests and clergy are the center of the Church, and everyone else is passively along for the ride, offering adoring and silent prayer support for our heroes. We laity are the disposable "bit players" in salvation history. The "real" Church is the priests.  Clericalism is the viewpoint that laity are not to think, question, write, ponder, or take action towards injustice when an injustice is perceived within the Church. Clericalism is the viewpoint that the laity are not fit to comment on or participate in parish finances, or make reasoned complaints when there is a legitimate reason to criticize. Perhaps most nefarious, clericalism is the viewpoint that priests and Bishops are essential, while laity are incidental, or even disposable.

This is not just a religious problem though, and we Catholics are not special. Clericalism's counterpart in the secular United States is the celebrity culture, which turns otherwise mature people into passive observers of other people's melodrama, taking sides and cheering from the sidelines. Secularists chose their own cults and their own tribes, with their own "plaster saints." This is not a religious problem, but a maturity problem. It is self evident to this observer that social media only exacerbates our collective codependence and celebrity worship, and makes it worse.

Yet, that cannot be an excuse.

The response of many in the Diocese of Bridgeport to the Msgr. Wallin scandal has been more of the same. We are told to pray about it. Move on. Nothing to see here. Isn't it sad? Support out priests! The poor man! All of this as if there is not a crying need for change and reform that seems so blatantly obvious to everyone except those most inside the Church.

The way that the diocese has responded to this situation is broken, and is indicative of a broken culture. It is a culture that is still broken, desperately so, and despite the scandals to rock our Church, there have been no meaningful cultural changes to the way we look at and think about the priesthood. Yes, there are new reporting procedures in place. As a Catholic father I feel my children are very safe at Church functions and with Church personnel. But as the case of Msgr. Wallin (and other situations) clearly shows, our reflecting on this topic has not gone deep enough, and the meaningful discussions that are called for are not occurring.

My initial response to reading about Msgr. Wallin was to say that Archbishop of Baltimore, William Lori, and his predecessor, Edward Egan, are somewhat at fault for this situation. By failing to address situations such as Msgr. Wallin’s in a forthright and functional way, both men have engaged in scandalous conduct that diminishes the moral authority they hold. Therefore, I felt that Bishop Lori, at a minimum, had a duty to apologize and address the situation. The reaction to this surprised me.

I know many who read this will accuse me of being uncharitable towards our shepherds, and are feeling very defensive of our Church. We all have our fears right now. If the Church were persecuted, I pray I would have the temerity to suffer whatever trials would come, and not lose my identity or fidelity to our Catholic faith. The Church faces an increasingly hostile culture, one that elevates the immoral and calls it moral. (Abortion is the greatest example of this cultural decay.) Yet, I firmly believe that we need to move past the point of being defensive, and instead be proactive. The time for change has come.

There is a reason why we must move, and act. That reason is love. Love requires us to name that which is dysfunctional. Love requires us to deal with reality. It requires us to be open, and honest, as opposed to secretive and conniving. The time has come for change.

For those non-Catholics reading this trying to make sense of it, the first thing to understand is that the priesthood is not a job. We are not protestants. The clergy are not in a profession. The priesthood is a vocation. Becoming a priest isn't like becoming an employee somewhere. Rather, it is like getting married.Thus it is different than speaking about how we deal with employees and employers.

In discussing the nature and potential solutions to clericalism and its ensuing dysfunction within the Church, a parallel should be made.  The parallel is not how an organization should treat an employee, but rather how a family will treat a member: how a spouse will treat a wife or husband.

If this is the case, then I think it is clear that the Church in the case of Msgr. Wallin, under the leadership of now Archbishop Lori, operated very much like a dysfunctional family would. Let's look at Wallin's actions from the point of view of the marriage vocation.

Let's assume a hypothetical husband sinned against his marriage the way Msgr. Wallin did against his vows.

Said husband would have a) cheated on his wife b) started doing drugs. c) possibly started dealing drugs around the kids, d) been (at the very least) verbally and emotionally abusive towards all of them.

This is an exact parallel.

To mimic the actions of the Diocese of Bridgeport regarding Msgr. Wallin said wife would a) say nothing at first... definitely keep it quiet from friends and family to avoid embarrassment and scandal. b) fight DCF actions to protect the children, c) complain about an aggressive nation state when the government tried to take custody, arguing to all who would listen that her family was being persecuted. d) maybe send her husband away for a little while, and give him some money too... just until it all blew over.

That is, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional response.

What the hypothetical wife (the Church) could have done:

Separated from her husband immediately and take the kids with her. Immediately reached out to her support network, and her (and his, depending on her relationship with them, their level of codependency and self-delusion etc.) family. Assuming he wasn't a danger to her, she could have scheduled an intervention to get everything out in the open. SHe could have sought means of doing all this where she would be safe, relying on charities and shelters or family members.

She would then set up a plan to move forward. To heal the marriage, the husband would have to agree to substance abuse counseling, psychological counseling, and oversight while swearing to never touch drugs again. If he refused or denied he had a problem, she should walk away, even call the police and inform them of his illegal activities (as anyone who has experienced addiction knows, it is necessary to first hit “rock bottom” before one is able to admit and desire help and sobriety.)

 This is hard. A Christian would always keep the door open to reconciliation and true reform (being a Christian is not easy)  But it would be the right thing to do. Would some family members attack her? Would some people in his (or even her) family stand with him and call her all sorts of vicious names?  Would she have to go through hell?  Would people talk?  Would it be embarrassing? Yes, yes, yes.... But she would be doing the right thing for the right reasons.

There are few actions more painful than an intervention such as this. I know because I have seen them first hand. They also have the power to transform and change lives and heal families. I have seen this too.  Courageously loving actions like these have the power to restore sobriety, and sanity, in people.

The case of Msgr. Wallin shows a Church failing to function. It is easy to, after the fact, criticize what those in authority have done. However, in a case such as this, what the Church should have done, just based on the information they had, seems very different to what they ended up doing.

Any of the following actions, or all of them together, could have been much more heathy for the Church in the long run.

Msgr. Wallin could have been suspended immediately when his conduct came to light. Diocesan leadership (the Bishop) could have gone to the parish, and come as clean as possible with the people. Leaders could have asked Wallin's flock to pray for him, and let them know that he was suspected of habitually breaking his vows in a very serious way, serious enough to merit this disciplinary action. The Bishop could have said that Msgr. Wallin was leaving his responsibilities to them for days and days at a time, and that such things were not acceptable, thus he was being removed from ministry for the time being.

This hypothetical course of action stands in stark contrast to telling the community that Msgr. Wallin was granted a "sabbatical" for time to “think”. A sabbatical is what you grant to a college professor who is writing a book, not someone who has scandalously broken their commitments to employer, let alone a priest who has abused the trust of his flock!

Leaders could have explained that, for privacy, parishioners would not be informed of what Wallin had actually done at this time. In all honesty they could have at that time assured parishioners that to the best of their knowledge, no laws were broken, and no children were in danger. However, an investigation could have been ongoing, including a thorough audit of all parish finances.  Would this really have disquieted the faithful?  OR could such honesty and communication assured the faithful that the Church was still functioning despite the struggles of one of its priests. 

 Msgr. Wallin could have been placed on "administrative leave" pending the results of said investigation, and a canon lawyer provided to him to advise him and protect him while the Diocese aggressively worked to leave no stone unturned in its investigation. Should he have refused to submit to all this and walked away? Payments from the diocese could have been stopped, and the process started for laicization.

This isn't rocket science. It is basic oversight of persons in responsibility 101. If the Bishop (or Diocesan officials) actually took such action, maybe they could have nipped the drug dealing in the bud, and actually have helped the man.

If the Church was acting like a functional family, and a highly functional spouse, their actions would have been very different from the codependent "sweep it under the rug and don't rock the boat" course they took. The Church right now is like a dysfunctional co-dependent family and that must stop.

It is therefore past time for a cultural change. The biggest thing preventing us from becoming a more functional family: clericalism.

If priests and clergy are the center of the Church, and everyone else is passively along for the ride, offering adoring and silent prayer support for our heroes, then we will seek to defend our heroes no matter what, even when what is needed is soul searching and some movement towards real change.  We will try and protect ourselves when priests fall by pretending they don't. We will not take appropriate action when behavior such as Msgr. Wallin's first comes to light.

If the laity are not to think, question, write, ponder, or take action towards injustice when an injustice is perceived within the Church, then clergy, who are human beings, will take the path of least resistance, doing whatever is comfortable, and that means not taking bold action and making life hard for themselves. Situations like Msgr. Wallin's will be handled quietly, in ways to "avoid scandal." If the laity are not fit to direct parish finances, or make reasoned complaints when there is a legitimate reason to criticize, then priests can do whatever they want with the money we give them, including spending it on questionable endeavors, or worse, misappropriating it. If only priests and Bishops are essential, while laity are incidental, or even disposable, then what does it matter what laity think or say? They are just along for the ride anyway.

How much open communication do we truly have in our Church? Do the Bishops you know deal with criticism in a healthy manner? If we write or call with a concern, do they or a representative even respond? Is there anything like a "two way street" when it comes to communication and openness?

How do we change? Here is the mature answer: I don't know. I only know it is time for a conversation to occur about how we relate to each other as the Church. We need to start asking questions about why these things keep happening. This is more than just policies and procedures; we have done and are doing that, and things HAVE gotten better from that perspective. But there is still something deeply dysfunctional at our core. Everything, from seminary formation, and especially what psychological training and counseling are required (and not required) needs to be looked at closely as we move forward. Lay formation needs to be addressed. Catechetical programs and their emphasis need to be examined. We need to do soul searching. Something isn't working. I don't care what side of the ideological Catholic divide one is on, everyone should be able to agree that right now there is something dysfunctional here. For love of our Church, the body of which every one of us is a member, isn't it time to address it?

Christ's Conception of Life.

"Jesus Christ did not come into the world as a substitute for human effort, for human freedom, or to eliminate human trial - the existential condition of freedom. He came into the world to call man back to the depths of all questions, to his own fundamental structure, and to his own real situation. If certain human values are not safeguarded, all the problems man is called to resolve in the trial of life do not dissolve, but rather become more complicated. Jesus Christ came to call man back to true religiosity, without which every claim to a solution of those problems is a lie. The problem of the knowledge of the meaning of things (truth), making use of things (work), human awareness (love), human co-existence (society and politics), lack a proper formulation, and so, to the extent that religiosity is not at the foundation of the search for their solution, they generate ever greater confusion in the history of the individual and humanity as a whole."

At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Luigi Giussani, p. 97

Three Sisterly Virtues! Three Virtuous Sisters?

         I think most of us have no problem using words to describe what Faith and Love are. Perhaps our descriptions aren’t as complete as they should be, but at least we are able to say what we think about these two virtues. Hope, however, is more difficult for us to talk about, or capture in words. Why? To answer that question, first let’s picture three daughters in a family. I think we will discover that Hope is the middle child, the sister who gets lost between the other two and ends up treated like an orphan.

      The firstborn of the sisters is Faith. Faith never felt neglected, because she was the first (and only) child for a couple of years. Next the second daughter, Hope, arrived. Of course mom and dad loved Hope too, but Hope didn’t get all the attention she needed because a third daughter followed her very soon. Hope’s problem was the third born, Love, (or Charity as her Birth Certificate officially designated her). She got the most care because she was the newest on the scene, the smallest, cutest and the weakest.  Everyone wanted to pick up and cuddle Charity. She was everyone’s focus. Love also was smart enough to see that she had to cover a lot of ground to catch up with her two sisters, so she quickly became aggressive and competitive. Faith was developed enough to stand up to her, but Hope, unfortunately, was not.

      I think this is a good example of the way we believers act towards the virtue of Hope in relation to Faith and Love. Hope becomes “what’s-her-name”, the neglected little girl in comparison to her two sisters. We are apt to express our faith by saying “Yes, I have faith in Jesus Christ. I believe in him; he is true God and true Man. He is my Savior and Redeemer”.  We might also express our love for him by saying “He died for us to pay for our sins, and I am grateful for what he did, so I try to love him, and express my love by serving him.” While not bad, these two declarations sound better than they are.  What’s wrong with them? They lack the depth of a Christ-centered, life commitment. Both declarations are quite feeble; as feeble any newborn whose needs are so great that receiving is its only capability. Our situation would not be bad if our Faith in Christ, and our Love for him, were based on an accurate understanding of our neediness. Since our need is absolute, so should our Faith in Christ and our Love for him be. But we operate under some erroneous assumptions: 1) that we are mature adults, 2) that maturity means self-sufficiency, and 3) therefore  total neediness is not the wellspring of Faith and Love, much less as the source of Hope as well. We could not be more mistaken. Self sufficiency is not the basis for the theological virtues in mature adults. Our total need for Christ is.

       Unless Hope is very alive in our minds and hearts, it is impossible for us to be firmly grounded in Faith and Charity. Hope is not an accidental link between the other two, but is their connection, expression, and continuation. Hope is part of the dance the Spirit is doing in us with all three virtues.  A Faith that doesn’t reach out Hoping for what it believes is dead. Hope that isn’t eagerly seeking, Loving and desiring what it hopes for doesn’t really love it. A Love that doesn’t rejoice in possessing and being possessed by its beloved isn’t worthy of its name. Individually each of the three virtues is a snapshot that catches the Spirit’s movement in us at a different moment. Faith’s outreach, Faith’s spark of self expression, is Hope. Hope’s eager longing fuels Love’s eager longing.  Love possessing and enjoying of what it has believed in and hoped for is the fruition of Faith and Hope.

      Perhaps a more helpful image than the three sisters would be a single child, one little girl, whose natural faith, hope, and love towards her father express the overflow of all she feels in her heart for daddy. Picture, if you will, just one girl in three poses. Imagine the little girl looking at the daddy. Make this, her childlike faith in daddy, snapshot number one. He is the man she believes in. He is no less than godlike in her eyes. He can do everything! He is the strongest, smartest, the most handsome, and the best father there is. She really believes that! (Any father who receives such adulation knows 1) it is unrealistic, 2) he doesn’t deserve it, and 3) that it certainly will not last long, but 4) he cannot help enjoy it while it is there.)

      Next, picture the little girl extending both arms to daddy and saying “Daddy, pick me up, pick me up.” The child’s trusting, demanding, hope in him is snapshot number two. She has no doubt that he will respond to her eager reaching out, because he is so good and she is so irresistible! 

     Snapshot number three is easy to figure out: the love the child enjoys snuggling in his arms.  It is the only place in the whole world she wants to be! Of course, in five minutes she will get restless, start squirming and want to get down, but the contentment she feels in his embrace is real even if short lived.

      On a natural level, the example works. But on a supernatural level, matters are not so simple. Imagine daddy and the girl 1,000 miles apart, for example. She can no longer see him, or stretch out her arm and speak to him, but she still believes in him, trusts him, and longs for him to pick her up and hold her. Her faith and hope and love are real, but they are not easily satisfied as before. Scype and the Internet enable her to speak and see him just as if she was standing next to him, but he cannot bend over and lift her into his arms. Her hope of being picked up goes unsatisfied. Now make the distance not only a matter of time and space, add eternity as well, and have Creator-God replace the created father.  Complexities multiply themselves.  Finally, replace the child with a Christian adult trying to enter into a relationship with God. How does a creature have faith, hope, and love in the Creator?  How does a finite being relate to the Infinite More Than?

       Faith is the door to the Kingdom. Hope is reaching out to open the door and step across the threshold; Love means to step across the threshold and live inside the kingdom. In the Kingdom, Love is Faith and Hope fully satisfied.

      If Faith is the branch on the Tree, then Hope is a nubby bud of wood that starts to grow on that branch.  And Love produces another full grown branch which the budding twig itself becomes.In Spanish, hope has the double meaning of waiting and desiring. Esperar, the verb, and esperanza, the noun, both have that sense, although sometimes one is emphasized at the cost of the other. But one without the other does not seem like hope to me.  When I ask the auto mechanic if he can repair my engine, and he says “I hope so. But wait and see,” well, I go look for another mechanic because this one does not seem up to the task at hand. On the other hand, if he tells me, “This looks complicated because of the wiring, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of tackling the job,” I am inclined to believe he has high hopes of accomplishing the task. Of course, I have to wait and see, but at least I have some reason to hope in him. With the first mechanic, waiting would be a waste of time.

      The point of this example, is that a human hope, a hope in humans, needs a solid basis, a reasonable confidence of being realized, otherwise it has no grounding. On a supernatural level, this is also true; our hope has to have a solid grounding. And it does, the most solid, because it is grounded in God. But for that very reason, it feels ungrounded to us, floundering, and free-floating. This is because hope in God has no immediate realization, no fulfillment in the next few minutes. This does not take away from hope’s solidity and strength, however, but is a testimony to it. Our hope is in the new creation that God is making us into, the new creation we are moving towards in faith and love, the new creation that is anchored and prefigured in Christ Event, the unity of our human flesh with the Risen One who sits at the Father’s right hand.

 

The Value of the Person

"....The whole world is not as worthy as the most insignificant human person. Nothing in the entire universe can compare with a person, from the first instant of his conception until the last step of his decrepit old age. Every person possesses within himself a principle by which he depends on no one, a foundation of inalienable rights, a font of values....

     Christian religiosity  does not spring from a taste for philosophy, but from the dogged insistence of Jesus Christ, who saw in that unique relationship with God the only possibility of safeguarding the value of he individual. Christian religiosity arises as the one and only condition for being human. This is man's choice: either he conceives himself free from the whole universe and dependent only on God, or free from God and therefore the slave of every circumstance..."

At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Luigi Giussani, pp.84, 86