Last Friday our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI issued his second encyclical letter. As you know, an encyclical letter is an authoritative document by which the Holy Father intends to teach the whole Church. Addressed to all of us, this is perfect reading for Advent in preparation for Christmas. While it reflects the profound philosophical and theological wisdom of the Holy Father, it is written in a style that everyone can understand. It can be a source of meditation and prayer for all of us.

The opening words of the encyclical are taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The pope cites those words in which St. Paul tells us, “We are saved by hope.” It goes on immediately to explain to us that faith and hope are interchangeable. Throughout the teaching of Jesus and in the writings of St. Paul, we find this time and again, that the gift of faith leads us to become men and women of hope. The faith that has saved us is a faith that gives us a new vision for our lives. The faith by which we live opens up to us a vision of life that goes beyond this world to the great hope which is God Himself.

In the process of proclaiming this wondrous truth of our faith, the Holy Father addresses some of the most important philosophical and theological questions of our day. He looks at the issues of our world. He addresses not only the great questions of our day that threaten life and make our own living complex and challenging, but he speaks as well to the human heart, and in his response to the issues of the day he opens up to us a great hope for the future.

One of the issues about which he himself has written many times before is that of the challenges of the modern world. He points out how it is that our Western culture from the time of Francis Bacon on has adopted a new set of standards based upon science and praxis. The shift to looking at the world as being complete in and of itself meant that new standards had to be found by which we measure human life. Those became scientific achievement and new knowledge coupled to a practice of life that is lived as if there is no God. That leads to an exultation, even an idolatry, of reason and of freedom. The only things that matter are human progress measured in a material sense. This belief in a progress that will always make humankind better and better because it is based on the efforts of human reason and individual freedom in fact has led to as much destruction as the world has ever known. In addition, as the Holy Father so cogently argues, we can see the effects of this in a world which, as he cites another author, has gone from “the sling to the atom bomb.”

Modernity needs to be critiqued because it has already shown itself to be deficient. The reason is that belief in progress is a two-edged sword. Progress at a material, scientific and technological level brings as much potential for harm as it does for good.

On an even deeper level, the Holy Father argues that the real issue is human freedom. We have to discover where our freedom truly lies. This has to be done in every generation. The freedom of the past can be lost in the present, and the present can enslave the future in ways that make human living ever more difficult and ever more precarious. In response, the Holy Father points out to us that the only way a person can live is if he has something which is meaningful to live for. That means we have to look at the project of human living not as a challenge to be achieved in the lives of each one of us but as a challenge which is shared by one and all.

The Holy Father, after looking at the challenges of modern life, reminds us that the only way the human heart can ultimately be satisfied is by discovering something which is greater than itself. There are many hopes within our lives, but only if there is “the great hope” that surpasses our own limitations and offers us an ultimate answer will we ever be able to live lives that embrace the truth and love the good. Thus, as the Holy Father argues, ultimately it is God and God alone who can answer the desires of the human heart; and human freedom ultimately only is free when it is exercised in the pursuit of the ultimate good who is God the great hope.

This can remain an abstraction for many because God is totally other from ourselves. We know far less about God than we can ever say. In fact, much of our knowing of God is simply metaphorical and limited except for the one wondrous truth that God has chosen to make Himself known through a person. That person is Jesus Christ. The Son of God in the fullness of time was made man born of a woman. Now God has a human face. Now God has given us an image of Himself. Now we have a person with whom we can interrelate and from whom we can receive a hope that is meaningful, a hope that is lasting, not of just this life but for life eternal.

In the second half of this encyclical, the Holy Father turns to some very real experiences which all of us know. He speaks about how we can discover hope in various settings of life. The first and most important is that of prayer. This section on prayer very beautifully opens up to us the possibilities of hope in the midst of the complexities of our human life. It is through prayer that we achieve an ongoing relationship to the Father through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. Prayer is not just something for ourselves but lifts us beyond ourselves to embrace one another and to embrace the whole world.

A second setting for the practice of hope is in our own actions. Human actions have meaning. Our human lives have meaning by the things we do and the projects we build. Those actions can go in either direction, either shutting off hope or opening up new vistas for each and every one of us. The way we interrelate with one another in our actions shows that hope is not just an individual reality. Rather, Christian hope is a salvation that is given to us through the person of Jesus Christ Who has redeemed all of humankind and therefore the whole world and indeed the cosmos.

In particular, the Holy Father focuses on suffering. Suffering comes to us because of our own limitation. Suffering is a part of our lives because of the great evil of both personal and social sin that has infected the world. Suffering is not from God, but how we as human beings deal with suffering is to a great extent dependent on our relationship to God. The truth is that God cannot suffer, but God willingly suffers with us because He sent His Son Who took upon Himself our suffering and gave Himself up to us in a death which overcame sin and death. Therefore, suffering takes on a new face. It is the face of Jesus Christ. Everyone who suffers, therefore, has the opportunity to transform the negativity of suffering into a positive relationship because of God’s loving care for him or for her. We too can share not only in the suffering that we might experience but also in the suffering of one another. For the passion of God is truly com-passion. He has suffered with us, and He invites us to suffer with one another, thus redeeming the evil and bringing into our lives the source of love who is God.

In the last paragraphs of the encyclical, the Holy Father calls us to recognize Jesus as the Light of the World and to recognize the importance of light in our own lives. In a very beautiful paragraph about the Blessed Mother who is the Star of the Sea and therefore the star of our hope, he invites us to find in her the light who will accompany us on our journey to Jesus, Who is the Light of the World. In a beautiful prayer to her, he concludes the encyclical by inviting us to look upon her at the various moments of her life and let her life illumine, guide and protect our lives.

We who are saved by hope because of the faith we have in Jesus Christ have received a great gift from our Holy Father in this Advent season. I urge everyone to read this encyclical during this holy season as a preparation for Christmas. I invite you to find the lights in your lives, the men and women who help us live day by day in the presence of Jesus Christ. I further invite you to choose someone in this Advent season from the great figures of Advent, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Joseph and especially Mary, as she travels to Bethlehem with Joseph to give birth to Christ the Light of the World. In this way, our Christmas will be illumined by the Son of God Who is the light of all humankind, and we too can share in that light as Mary did and become ourselves lights to the world.