By Fina Golden

Fina Golden, Retreat Coordinator at the Fr Peyton Centre, was honoured to be invited to speak during the Nine Night Novena to St Anthony for the Holy Souls at St Patrick’s Church, Ballina, in the Parish of Kilmoremoy. Her reflection formed part of this special evening of prayer and remembrance, bringing together the faith community to remember and pray for the faithful departed.

Thank you, Fr Aidan, for your warm welcome and kind words of introduction. I am delighted to have this opportunity to be here this evening and to speak to you about Hope in this Jubilee year. I have never been in this lovely church before and how appropriate that it is named after St Patrick. He was the first to Sow Seeds of hope in Ireland and thank God he did and may he give us the strength, courage and indeed hope to continue sowing seeds.   

In May gone by we had the 10th anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si. That was Pope Francis’ encyclical about creation. Many words have been spoken and written since then exploring the depth of Pope Francis’ thought. He used a lovely phrase in the encyclical – he called the earth Our Common Home (LS 1). He is not just referring this planet as a rock orbiting the sun that needs to be looked after, he is referring to the care we need to give to each other. If we do not care for each other, we will not see the need to care for the planet and if we do not care for the planet and each other we are not caring the future generations who will come after us. If we do not care for future generations we are not caring for God’s greatest gift of creation. Our life on this earth is finite, and our hope lies in eternal life and that is what we are drawn to. Sometimes it is difficult to live the hope that is eternal life but God, in his infinite wisdom and loving care, shows us how to nourish the grace that hope brings us. 

Towards the end of Laudato Si Pope Francis refers to the “joy of our hope” (LS 244). I believe this is one of the key points of the document. Pope Francis is not just asking us to be hopeful, he is telling us our hope is joyful. I will suggest a few reasons why I believe our hope is joyful and not just joyful, but infectious.  

I have been fortunate enough to attend 3 WYD events and they have been the most wonderful experiences of my life. WYD is aimed at young people aged 18 to 35. Luckily for me they don’t check dob because by the time I attended my first WYD I was past the best before age of 35!! On the day after the 2022 WYD in Lisbon I was walking in the park with a man called Paulo, I had stayed with his family while in Lisbon. We met 2 young men sitting on bench and you can easily recognise people who had been to WYD by the sheer level of exhaustion displayed on their faces. They were from Czech Republic and we chatted. I asked them what the best thing about WYD. One of them said “I learned that happiness is not about pleasure, it is much more than that.” He was able to look beyond the life he could see with his eyes and see with the eyes of his soul. The eyes of the soul are hope filled because they can see beyond the immediate happiness to the joy of eternal life that awaits us. It is that hope that sustains us in this life. 

So, does this hope really exist and can I share in its fruits? 

Scripture is always a good place to begin seeking answers. St Paul tells us in the letter to Romans that we can boast of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory. We also boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God’s love, and his love creates hope. This hope does not disappoint. (cf Romans 5). One of the things I tell the children who come to the Fr Peyton Centre for a retreat in preparation for Confirmation is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit we receive in Confirmation must be used in order to bear fruit and as a result, the fruits of the gifts bring us closer to Jesus. 

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul again speaks of hope, may he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit. (cf Eph 1:18). He is encouraging us to see beyond what is in front of us and look to eternity. The hope we have in God is our hope of eternal life and we know that is has been promised to us by the Cross. This joy that we find in hope cannot be contained. It is infectious and must be shared, and it is shared by our way of living.  

So, what is different about this hope we receive from the Holy Spirit and what is different about that young man I met in Lisbon after his experience of WYD?  

It is more than just being hopeful. We can all hope for a fine day tomorrow or we can hope that the Stephanites will win the Connacht Club Final. But that is little more than wishful thinking and there is not much we can do to achieve it.  

The difference for us here this evening, as Paul tells us in his letter to Romans, is that we are not just hopeful we are hope filled. He tells us our endurance builds character, and character builds hope. I can look beyond immediate circumstances and see the hand of God as he unfolds events in my life. Everything in my life, when seen through the hope filled eyes of the soul is God working in me and through me. Endurance gives me the courage to be hope filled in all circumstances, it is a way of life. It is a way of looking forward, it is a way of living a life full of joy in the sure knowledge of the resurrection. When we live this life other people notice that there is something joyful about us. 

Living a hope filled life is our response to the challenges we face each day. It allows us to be witnesses, and as Pope Paul VI said, we listen more to witnesses than to teachers. There is nothing wrong with teaching, but we must be witness to what we teach. Being hope filled is a way of life, not just a destination to be reached. 

So, how do we nourish and increase this hope that comes to us from the Holy Spirit?  

By uniting ourselves more closely with God through prayer, and the fruit of this will be peace in our hearts. A peace that helps us to see beyond the immediate strife we see and experience every day. To see this hope in action we need look no further than Mayo’s most famous son. 

Fr Patrick Peyton is known to all of us. He understood the connection between peace and hope. He and his family were witnesses to hope in the life they lived on the farm in Attymass. They tilled the soil and accepted the gift of God’s created nature as they farmed the land. They lived in harmony with nature because they lived in harmony with each other and most of all they lived in harmony with God. Each evening they prayed the rosary they gave thanks to God for the day and for each other. Through the daily rosary and Mass they nurtured their relationship with God. A family that prays together stays together. With this foundation, Patrick Peyton left Ireland and began sowing seeds of hope all over the world and these seeds continue to flourish today. 

Fr Peyton is also well known for saying A world at prayer is a world a peace. He believed this not because it was a catchy phrase with a nice message but because it was the life he experienced. His life in Attymass, his life in the seminary, his life as a Priest bore the hallmarks of a life of peace in his relationship with God. This peace is not to be confused with happiness and tranquillity. It is much deeper than that. It is a peace that comes from a relationship with God that he lived every day and a hope that he had in the promise of eternal life. Fr Peyton’s hope filled life gave him the strength and courage and perseverance to tirelessly promote family prayer. He faced many obstacles but he continued to persevere because he believed he was doing what Our Lady wanted him to do. Fr Peyton’s hope filled life was fuelled by his desire to help people understand and believe the importance of prayer so that they would place their hope in God. This hope brings peace in our hearts and the more hearts that have this peace the more peace we will see in the world.   

For us, as Catholics, Sowing the Seeds of Hope is not just about reaping the harvest, sowing seeds of hope is our way of life, our journey, it is our energy, it is our desire but most of all it is our response to the gift from God our creator, his gift of himself, of each other and the gift of our common home, the earth. 

The earth is our common home 

Eternal life is our common goal 

Hope is our common way of life  I pray that we will all be known for our hope filled way of life because hope will not disappoint (cf Romans 5).