The following is a presentation given by Sister Maureen Sullivan, OP, at a Hope Gathering for Dominican Sisters of Hope, Associates and friends, April 15, 2000.

Introduction
I am very delighted to have this opportunity to speak with you about a topic that is so important to all of us - that being, the meaning of hope. Whenever I give a theology presentation, I am always conscious of the need for my talk to be theologically informative as well as spiritually transformative.

Singing a New Song:
Insights from Timothy Radcliffe, OP

In preparation for today, I focused on the chapter entitled "The Bear and the Nun" from the wonderful new book, Sing A New Song: The Christian Vocation by Timothy Radcliffe, OP.

However, Vatican II called us to make scripture the soul of theology. And so, my words today are really grounded in a quote from the first letter of Peter, Chapter 3:15: "Always be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for the reason for the hope that is in you." In fact, this biblical text has been considered to state the fundamental charge given to every theologian. Hope is the existential direction of one's whole self toward an expected or promised future. Later in my presentation, I plan to discuss the person of Jesus Christ as the foundation of this hope and the Holy Spirit as the one who provides us with the capacity to come to know this. In one sense, there is a very clear connection between this scripture reference and the chapter I chose in Radcliffe's book.

The subtitle in his chapter on the "The Bear and the Nun" is: "What is the sense of Religious life today?" In an attempt to answer that question, he takes as his starting point the crisis of meaning prevalent in contemporary society. He maintains that religious life is more important now than ever before because of how we are called to face this crisis of meaning. Radcliffe says perhaps the primary witness of religious life today is allowing our lives to be an answer to the deeper question: "What is the sense of human life today?" He goes on to offer two images which convey the way human life is understood, and he claims that during times of profound change, society needs a new story to make sense of life. He then tells his readers: "We must tell that story!" The old story (represented by the Bear) is the story of the modern self. But people must see in us an invitation to be human in a new way. (Actually, we are asked to rediscover and then proclaim, preach and give witness to the ultimate reflection of what humanity is intended to be - the one given to us in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ.)

At the heart of modernity, there is a contradiction. Despite all our advances, this progress does not take us to the Kingdom. In describing the image of the young nun singing a love song before the paschal candle, Radcliffe sees what we must see, that religious life must be a living "Amen" to a reality forgotten and sometimes neglected and ignored by the world in which we live - the reality of the Kingdom - a reality yet to be fully experienced. In this sense, Radcliffe maintains that religious life does have a prophetic dimension, for, as he states: "the prophet is the one who sees the future bursting into the present." It is precisely now, when the kingdom seems more remote than ever before, that we have a role to play. No one else could dream now!
The basic assumption of the modern story is that the weak perish and the strong survive. It eliminates the defective, the hopeless, the unviable. But our young nun singing before the new fire of the paschal candle offers a different scenario. She sings of a man who is crushed by the strong, but lives forever. Her story suggests the unimaginable gift of new life.

Timothy Radcliffe believes that religious are called to be signs of God's absolutely incredible creativity. This concept of new life brings us to the next section of my presentation today.

Religious Women: Women of the Church

I thought long and hard about what I might say to you today, how I might offer you an understanding of hope grounded in a theological perspective that would be sound and one that might give real meaning to our corporate understanding of this very powerful virtue of hope. One that would enable us to truly be signs of new life to our world today, to be like that nun singing a love song.

What I would like to do is offer a brief comparison between our experience as women religious and the experience of the church today. There are a number of shared experiences between the two and a similar message of hope which I would like to present for both the church and we who serve the people of God.

In preparation for the new millennium, the official teachers of the church asked us to focus on the Trinity. In 1997, we looked at the person of Jesus Christ. In 1998, the Holy Spirit, and then last year we devoted ourselves to a study of the very powerful theme - Abba, Father - God of love. From a theological standpoint, I believe this suggestion was a moment of grace for the church as a whole not simply because the Trinity is the central dogma of our faith, but because we were encouraged to undertake a genuinely theological endeavor and make the Trinity real for ourselves. Such an endeavor is critical today.

The church, as we know, is not a business. It is the body of Christ. It has and will continue to have its time of joy as well as suffering. But ultimately, as we are told in the Book of Revelation, it will be revealed as the New Jerusalem. This is the church's destiny and each of us makes a particular contribution to this process. The book of Revelation speaks about the "home of God among mortals": "He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more...mourning and crying and pain will be no more." 21:3-4
This idea of a new Jerusalem fills our hearts with hope. But we are also realistic. We know that we are a long ways off from realizing the fullness of what the new Jerusalem will be. We know that we are journeying toward that fullness, which is the reason the Second Vatican Council designated us as "the pilgrim people of God." We know, too, that like religious life, the church is experiencing difficulties today. The history of the church shows us that - in this respect - we are no different from our ancestors.

Every generation must examine its moment in history and evaluate it honestly. Then it must celebrate its achievements and address its shortcomings. Will the Catholic Church enter this new millennium as a church of promise, supported by the faith of a new generation, capable of being a source of inspiration for our culture? Many of its leaders, both lay and clerical, feel under siege and sometimes polarized. Many of the faithful, particularly the young, feel disenfranchised, confused about their beliefs and frequently drift away from the tradition into which they were born. I see this every day with my students. Our department was so concerned with this that we instituted a Catholic Studies Program at the College. Many of the church's institutions feel uncertain of their identity and increasingly fearful about their future.

As members of one of those institutions, we have a first hand experience of this uncertainty. We know that vocations to religious life have seen a serious decline in the last 25 years. What is to become of the institution of religious life? I think if we are truly honest with ourselves, we have to admit that this is a question that has touched each of us in the deepest core of our beings. Some of you may be wondering right now: "Why did they invite her to speak about hope??? She is so depressing!!" But fear not, the encouraging part is coming. Given all that I have said thus far, what understanding of hope might I offer today? What could I say that might help us to realize that we honestly can enter the new millennium as women of promise? My answer to these questions emerges from my own theology of hope. I offer it to you for your reflection and I pray it will assist us in our corporate journey of hope.

A Theology of Hope

Dominican theologian, Aidan Nichols, has provided what I think is the best definition of theology. He writes: "Theology is the disciplined exploration of Revelation." It is disciplined in that it is grounded in scripture and tradition. I am not free to say whatever I want as a theologian. Secondly, theology is an exploration. It is not just a matter of repeating what past generations have said. Theologians know that because every articulation of theological truth is historically conditioned (meaning that it is a product of its time in history), then every generation must bring its questions and concerns to bear upon the theological process. The basic truths do not change, but our understanding and grasp of them do grow and develop. Thirdly, theology is focused upon Revelation, the personal self-disclosure of God to creation.

My exploration of revelation has led me to two particular truths which form the basis of my theology of hope:
A. The person of Jesus Christ - Because here we find an answer to the question previously raised by Radcliffe "What does it mean to be human today?"
B. The gift of the Holy Spirit - We need to rediscover the pneumatological dimension of Christian living today as we move toward the promise for tomorrow because only the Holy Spirit can provide us with the possibility of singing that love song before the paschal candle.

A. The Person of Jesus Christ: The Foundation of Our Hope
There is a wonderful passage in the New Testament where Jesus asks: "Who do people say that I am?" After some attempts at an answer, Jesus asks a more crucial question of Peter: "But who do you say that I am?" This question is of course addressed not only to Peter, but to every believer. And our response is critical in our search for a genuine theology of hope. Jesus is the one who first actively showed hope in the darkness of our history. The conditions in which he exercised hope were in many ways the same as ours. The kingdom which Jesus announced and for which he was hoping would come about only through the deliverance of self to God and absolute trust in the face of opposition and suffering. Incapable of justifying himself, his reputation (at least in the eyes of others) apparently lost, Jesus knows what it will cost not to play the game of the world. But he hopes that extreme love will become the strength for transformation. Because only transformed desire can endure the waiting required of those who hope.

Only transformed desire interprets the apparent silence of God as something other than indifference. Jesus experienced the challenge of being human. He did not mask the failure of his preaching. He wept over Jerusalem. He experienced the pettiness and blindness of the Scribes and Pharisees. He witnessed the limitations of his disciples. Yet Jesus' hope was rooted in the absolute faithfulness of God.
Vatican II claimed that "the future of humanity lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping."

Christians find those reasons in the Paschal Mystery, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians are people set apart by the cross of Christ. Ultimately, only the death of Jesus can ease our terror. He was one with us in experiencing the fearful power of death. Theologian Gerald O'Collins states: "Only by his great outcry 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' did Jesus become our brother." That outcry knew the terror of death, but the darkness is faced with the words: "Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit." The ultimate experience and example of human hope begins in the Garden of Gethesamane. In the fullness of his humanity, Jesus looks to the Father and asks if his cup of suffering might pass. These words have real personal significance. Whenever I read or hear this passage, I am reminded of how often I have uttered those same words. Yet, the real challenge comes at the end of Jesus' prayer: "Not my will but yours be done."

This is what real hope is all about. It is basically a letting go of a world in which we think we are in control and an opening of ourselves to a world governed by divine Love. This is the central message of the Incarnation-Letting God be God-Recognizing the Mystery who is God. So much of the Old Testament is an account of humankind's failure to truly accept its creaturely status, and therefore, humankind's refusal to let God be God. The stories of Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, the worship of the golden calf in Exodus, Israel's rejection of the prophets-truly, the theme song for the Old Testament could be "My Way."

But finally in the person of Jesus - the ultimate human yes is uttered. To be women of promise for the 21st century will necessitate the grounding of our commitment in this most complete act of hope. This is what it means to live in the reign of God and hope is the central virtue of anyone living in that world. This hope is rooted in the confidence that all possibilities for life are under the care and guidance of a loving, providential God.

Hope is confidence in the possibility that those things which are now so destructive of human well-being will be overcome. Without this personal surrender, our hope remains sterile.

B. The Rediscovery of the Holy Spirit
We look now to the role of the Holy Spirit in our coming to a theology of hope. I refer to this part as the need to rediscover the Holy Spirit. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, we found ourselves at somewhat of a loss when it came to speaking about the Holy Spirit. We could talk about God the Father - after all, didn't we have pictures of God on little holy cards? And we could speak about the human Jesus, but the Holy Spirit was more of a challenge. Of course, we had pictures of the Spirit as well. Recall the holy cards showing the little flames over the heads of the apostles on Pentecost!!

The Christian God is a God of absolute proximity, a God who is revealed in the flesh in the person of Jesus. It is a God who is present in the very depths of our being. That presence is possible through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God's life and breath in humanity. Christian theology teaches us that we are made by God, for God. That means that humanity was created with a unique capacity for God at the core of its being. Theologian Karl Rahner, S.J. refers to this "capacity" as a transcendental openness. No other species has this openness.

The relationship between nature and grace has been a topic of theological discussion for centuries. During the medieval times, there were those who described grace as something "added on" to human nature (sort of like icing on a cake). Karl Rahner disagreed with this perception. He claimed that as humans we have a "graced nature" and no separation between the two is possible. (Sometimes I will use the example of the "whiteness in a piece of chalk" when I speak to my students about grace. There is no way to separate the two).

In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes: "There is to be sure a certain wisdom which we express among the spiritually mature...what we utter is God's wisdom: a mysterious hidden wisdom...God planned it before all ages for our glory...God has revealed this wisdom through the Spirit. The Spirit we have received is not the world's spirit, but God's spirit helping us to recognize the gifts he has given to us."

Paul seems to be giving an account of what happens when God reveals himself to human consciousness -when revelation occurs for that particular individual-when the human spirit becomes conscious of its being touched by the sacred-when it becomes aware of the presence of God within.

When I deal with this concept in my classes, I use the example of a woman with child. The child is within her before she is even aware of it. So, too with God. In his encyclical, The Lord and Giver of Life, Pope John Paul II wrote: "Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the inner spiritual man and woman matures and grows strong. They discover the divine dimension of their being and life." At Vatican II, Cardinal Suenens was asked by a journalist: "What do you think constitutes at the present time the greatest obstacle to the evangelization of the world?" He responded: "The lack of faith among Christians as to what, by the grace of God, they really are."

Do we ever think about that-about what we really are-about what the presence of God in us enables us to be and do and to hope for? We are reminded of the words of John's gospel: "My going will be advantageous to you." This is how the Risen Christ announced the encounter he was planning with each of us for all eternity. "I am with you always even until the end of the world." Do we really believe it? Do we understand the Holy Spirit as the principle mode of God's presence in each of us? Again, in John's gospel: "He the Spirit of Truth will teach you everything." Do we take these words as a solemn promise or a mere pious consolation?

Do we read them as poetry or fact? We know that the Vatican II document Dei Verbum on Revelation cautioned us against the previous approach to the reading of Scripture which was literal. Hence, we no longer read the Bible literally. But these words must mean something!! The Holy Spirit is the principle of Christ's incarnation in each one of us. Pentecost proved that God had become flesh not just for 33 years, but for all time, since God dwells in us. The Incarnation means that God became human, whereas Pentecost means that humans have been invited to become like God.

Our basic sin is our refusal to allow the Spirit to act in us, to be a source of deep hope for us-something that free will makes possible. Sinning against the Holy Spirit means no longer believing that God can change the world because we don't believe that God can change us. The real atheist is not the one who claims that God does not exist, but the one who denies the Spirit's infinite power to create and transform. To be women of promise for the 21st century, our hope must be rooted in the Spirit's ability to continue to change and renew us.

Conclusion

Many of us are part of a generation who experienced the church and religious life before the Second Vatican Council. In some ways, it would appear that we have witnessed a reversal of fortunes. What have we done wrong? Is it our fault that attendance at mass on Sundays has declined significantly-that seminaries and convents are half empty? Most of us can think back to the 1950s when our Catholic schools were filled, a nun in every classroom. There are those who would blame us, who would insist that a return to a pre-Vatican II mindset would solve our current problems. I do not agree. As suggested by a retreat director in a theological article I read recently-this is a time for us to reflect on our current situation in the light of the resurrection and the appearances of the Risen Christ afterwards and to see in the disciples examples for our contemporary experiences.

The New Testament accounts make it very clear that the Risen Christ was clearly different. The gospels tell us how often the disciples did not recognize him at first. The disciples themselves were profoundly changed by their experience. Their shame at abandoning him at Gethsemane, the discovery of their own cowardice and fear, the sobering, maturing experience of despair, and then the realization that, in spite of all this, the Risen Lord was inviting them back to intimacy with himself as well as giving them responsibility for the church that would emerge.

The experience of Jesus' followers (possible role models for us today) can best be described as a transformation. Jesus' death and resurrection became a moment of grace for them. The church of the new millennium-religious life in the new millennium- whose shape we cannot fully discern at this time will be new. It will be a resurrected, sobered, matured church and religious life-humbler, realizing that all is gift. If we who serve the church today as religious women are undergoing something of a crucifixion, it is in order that we may rise again, entirely by the grace of God, to a new place.

In another article, theologian Anthony Padovano writes about Easter hope. He makes a comparison between the pre and post Vatican II models of church. Prior to Vatican II, the church was known for its certitude, things were clearly right or wrong, there were no gray areas. And if we should come upon a question, we had only to look to the Pope for an answer since Vatican I had articulated the teaching on infallibility. This is one reason why so many people were surprised when John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council. Why would we need a council? Of course, as recipients of what Vatican II brought about, we now know why John XXIII was moved to call a council. Indeed, his council did breathe new life into our church.

Padovano goes on to describe this post Vatican II model of church. It lacks the certitude of the past because we came to realize that only God is the fullness of truth and that the human church is journeying toward that fullness, but is never in possession of it here on earth. The comments he makes about these two models of church apply to us as well as we seek a foundation and explanation for the hope that is in us. In his comparison of the "two churches," Padovano claims the pain we feel now is the pain of the Incarnation. God makes a covenant with human hearts, not with institutions. The incarnation into human life is a crucifixion but its end result is Easter glory. So the process we are engaged in is an authentic one. It is a gospel process. This should give us great hope.

After the Resurrection, Jesus did not indulge in recriminations. He said: "Peace be with you. Receive the Holy Spirit." And we cannot forecast what the Holy Spirit will do in our time because history has shown us that with the Holy Spirit, there are moments when the impossible becomes possible-moments when the unthinkable becomes thinkable. At the conclave after the death of Pope Pius XII, the Cardinals were having difficulty arriving at a majority candidate for the papacy. Finally, a group of them decided to put their votes toward Angelo Roncalli. Their thinking at the time was: "He is quite old. He is a rather simple man. He can serve as an interim pope for the time being. He will make no major changes." Little did they know what this peasant, who would take the name of John XXIII, would achieve in the church!!

To be women of promise for the 21st century we must voice the call of Christ for a new humanity. During our time in history it is clear that our human family needs inspiration. Some have even referred to us as "mid-wives" for the kingdom. I find that a very powerful image. And that is precisely why Timothy Radcliffe is so taken by the young nun singing a love song before the paschal candle. Her song is her way to offer an insight into the meaning of human life today. This is the story we are invited to tell as women religious in the 21st century. This is the challenge offered by the "new Jerusalem" theme with which I began my presentation: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth...I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God...I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: Behold, God's dwelling is with the human race...then the one who sat on the throne said: Behold, I make all things new." 21:1-6

May we always be ready to make a defense for the hope that is in us. For as Timothy Radcliffe writes: "Even in the dark, in despair, when nothing makes sense anymore, we may meet the God of life." This is certainly something to hope for!