Building muscles of hope

Every time you do a bit of exercise—go for a brisk walk, swim some laps, head to the gym—the extra load you put on your body as you exercise causes microtears in your muscles. This is a good thing: the tears are necessary for our muscles to grow. Of course, it also causes the soreness we get in our muscles. As the saying goes, ‘no pain, no gain’.

We might say that the person who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews, which we heard from in our second reading today, knew something about exercising. Recall his words: ‘the Lord trains the ones that he loves ... Suffering is part of your training; God is treating you as his sons and daughters.’

There is work involved in our belonging to the kingdom of God. It is good work, healthy work, rewarding work. But it is felt in our lives as we come ever closer to Christ by exercising our spiritual muscles. This is necessary, the author says, so that we can bear the fruits of peace and goodness, and make us strong in Christ.

What sort of exercise and training are we to do? Prayer, for certain, is the great spiritual work we can all undertake. Prayer is a work of trust and friendship building. ‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ Anyone—and everyone—can pray. In fact, those who most struggle in life—in illness, by breakdown, through incapacity—are often the greatest pray-ers among us. When I visit prisons, for example, I am struck by how good the prisoners are in praying for each other.

We exercise our kingdom presence also when we undertake those wonderful works of mercy—of attending to those who are hungry or thirsty, or visit the sick or house bound, or be present with those in captivity or harmed in some way. In the exercise of mercy, we build muscles of hope.

Forgiveness has got to be the great exercise of those close to the heart of Jesus. To forgive, and to be forgiven, are powerful means of training for peace and freedom. Forgiveness is healing for our lives.

All of these—prayer, mercy, forgiveness—are the narrow doorways through which we may pass into God’s kingdom, as Jesus spoke of as he made his own way to Jerusalem, and to his death that gave us life. The cross was Jesus’ narrow doorway—a tool of violence, cruelty and death, yet for us a pathway of love, redemption and healing. As St Peter put it, quoting the prophet Isaiah, by his wounds we are healed. Or, to quote St Faustina, ‘For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.’

Herein lies our hope. Christ’s journey to Jerusalem gives us the foundation for hope in our own lives. Herein the last shall come to be first, from north and south and east and west. From the nations, we are invited into God’s kingdom; there is hope and life for us along the pilgrim path that Jesus took. Let us, then, become witnesses to this hope, by taking up the pilgrim way with Christ, in his divine mercy.