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Letter from Rome: Hope and despair are contagious

Words of wisdom and signs of encouragement from the former master of the Dominicans
Letter from Rome: Hope and despair are contagious

A police officer stands behind a white flower during a demonstration against Covid-19 vaccination in Brussels, Belgium, on Dec. 19. (Photo: Aris Oikonomou/AFP)

Published: December 20, 2021 02:42 AM GMT
Updated: December 20, 2021 02:42 AM GMT

Now that the Omicron variant of the virus is quickly spreading around the globe, a lot of folks are overcome by a sense of gloom and even despair.

“It's not just Omicron but a sense that history is not going anywhere. There's a rise of violence, threats of war, the ecological catastrophe ... Many young people say they don't want to have children because they don't want to bring them into a world that has no future. But we believe in God's future.”

Those are the words of Timothy Radcliffe, the former master of the Order of Preachers. He offered them in the homily he gave at the morning Mass he celebrated with his Dominican brethren in Oxford, England.

What he said next is something we all need to ponder: “I love the word "confidence" — from the Latin con fidens, "believing together". In this time of waiting, we should give confidence to each other ... We must share our hope. Hope and despair are contagious. And every one of us makes a choice of whether we are going to be a source of hope or a source of despair.”

Hope or despair. We must choose which of these we will embrace and share with others. The choice should be obvious to those of us who are trying to follow Christ and imitate the way he lived on earth.

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