Optimism

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came with her sons to make a request of him and bowed low. And he said to her, ‘What is it that you want?’ She said to him, ‘Promise that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand, and the other at your left in your kingdom.’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?’ They replied, ‘We can’” (Matt. 20:20-22).

St. Josemaría liked those words very much: “We can.” They were faced with the challenge that Our Lord placed before them. They could not have known what that cup that He was going to drink was all about.

Whenever a cup or a chalice is mentioned in Scripture, usually it refers to suffering. Yet they rose to the occasion: “We can.”

St. Josemaría, we know, made a tapestry where he placed the word possumus, ‘We can’ in Latin, around the edge of that tapestry, because he liked it so much.

There is a great humility there because, on the one hand, we can say “we can,” but at the same time, we are aware of our nothingness. We have nothing, we can do nothing. We are totally powerless.

But at the same time, there is a great optimism there—optimism because we confide not in our personal strength, but in the strength of God that is given to us. There is a great sense of divine affiliation, a deep humility, a deep faith.

On this Feast of St. James, we could ask for that same optimism in the face of all the little challenges that may be placed in front of us. Things that possibly we might think we cannot manage, or it’s too much, or too many demands, or I don't have time, or a whole pile of other things, might pass through our mind.

But yet with the apostles, we say, “We can.” Our Lord was placing before them the most incredible ideals: change the world, change society. “Go you therefore teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

The ideals of Christ are the greatest ideals that anybody could have on the planet. And the apostles were starting out at the very beginning of all of this.

In many ways, in our own personal apostolate, we are also beginning again. We see the same horizons. We see the greatness of the love, beauty, and truth that God has given to us.

And yet we are faced with the challenge of bringing that to every last corner of society. Our Lord wants us to have a great optimism.

There was an auction in hell one time—you probably heard the story—and the devil was sharing his greatest instruments. There was a price on every instrument: anger, envy, jealousy, lust, gluttony et cetera, et cetera. There was also a price of discouragement, and the price of discouragement was three times the price of all the other prices.

Somebody who was touring the auction and saw this asked the devil, “How come discouragement is so expensive?” The devil said, “You see, it's my greatest instrument. And the greatest thing about it is that nobody knows it's mine.”

We don't equate discouragement with the devil and with his temptations. But yet he's always there.

We have to try and fight against any form of discouragement that might come in our life, in our apostolate, in our work, in our interior life.

Those words “we can” help us to keep looking up, keep looking forward, reminding ourselves that we are children of God. We are carried in His hands and He's looking after everything. And also, He's speaking to us in all the little moments of the day, never leaving us alone.

There was a lady in another country once who told me how she was sitting in her garden one day. She was a very successful professional lady. She said, “I began to look at this rose in the garden. The thought came to my mind that man has been able to put men on the moon, but no man can make a rose like that.”

She decided to change her life. She became a sort of a Mother Teresa, looking after AIDS patients, and spent the rest of her life doing that.

God speaks to us through the most ordinary things. The Holy Spirit is there. There's a message for us, reminding us that “we can.”

Looking at our own personal miseries and not ourselves—we can't, you know. But that's not the idea when we look up.

We trust in Him. We try to be open to the plans that He has for us, all the time thinking, “What does God want me to do? What can I do in this particular situation?”

There was a guy in a hospital once in Canada who lost both his legs. As he sat on the hospital bed afterwards, a thought came to his mind: “I have two choices. I can sit here complaining for the rest of my life, complaining about how roughly life has treated me. Or I can get two artificial limbs and walk across Canada for charity.” That's what he did—he reached for the stars.

Our Lord wants us to think in that same way, think out of the box. In this particular moment in time, when maybe our normal apostolic activities might be somewhat curtailed, we have to try and look a little farther and see, “What possibilities is God giving me to make contact with people, or to meet them, or to influence them, or to send them things?”

Coming back to our prayer, it's from our prayer that we move everything. That phrase of Scripture from the Old Testament is enormously relevant: “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

In these weeks and months, Our Lord is saying that to each one of us. Out of all of our organizing and moving, “Be still and know that I am God.”

‘This time I want your prayer, your deeper unity to me. Your awareness of your divine filiation. Your total trust and confidence in me. Your optimism, that possibly you are less active, but I am more active in souls, with my grace, moving things.’

The Christian is necessarily optimistic because he knows he's a child of God. ‘Lord, may I never lose my optimism’—optimism, particularly in the face of difficulties, the chalice that God asks us to take or to look after.

St. Paul speaks a lot about this sporting spirit, this so-called optimism: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness” (1 Cor 12:9).

These are wonderful phrases because it means we don't have to worry about our failures, or mistakes, or limitations, because we know God is acting in us and through us.

“If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).

“My power is made perfect in your weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

My power is made perfect in your limitations, in the curtailment of your activities. ‘You may be less active, but I am more active.’

“I will let the more gladly boast,” he says, “of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

We find St. Paul expressing this same optimism continually, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

Where in the world do you find people who can say things like that? Full of confidence, and hope, and joy; assurance of victory. “The Lord is my light and my salvation” (Ps. 27:1).

With this optimism, we can turn and look at the things that God has placed in front of us, realizing there will always be difficulties. But God wants us to face them with that sporting spirit, with the knowledge that everything will come right.

Very often, things don't work out the first time. They don't work out the second time. And often, they work out the third time.

I may have mentioned how in the school that we were involved in in the Philippines, we had a converted classroom which was an oratory, a temporary oratory. It was very simple. I think the altar was made of plywood. There were bars in the windows. It was all very, very simple.

Then we decided that we should try and improve it somehow. But we never spent any money, and we never chose any sort of decor or anything. We decided to put wallpaper in the sanctuary area. But we'd never chosen wallpaper either.

We spent about three months making this monumental decision. Then it was going to involve spending a certain amount of money, and we'd never spent money before.

It took another week and months to get it done. Finally, the wallpaper was bought, and it was hung on the wall, and it looked fantastic.

A priest architect there told us that temporary solutions tend to last twenty-five years. We were very aware that this wallpaper that was chosen—we were praying that it would look ok, because it might be there for twenty-five years.

Anyway, it was put up on the wall and everything looked fine. We went home and we came back the following morning, and the wallpaper was on the floor.

Now, very unusual things sometimes happen in the Philippines. We thought maybe this was another one of those unusual things that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world: that wallpaper doesn't stay on the wall, it rolls off the wall.

People were suggesting all sorts of different reasons for this. It could be the devil, all sorts of preternatural, supernatural reasons, et cetera, et cetera.

Anyway, we called the workers and they put it up again and it looked fine. And we went home. The following day we came back, and it was on the floor again. And this happened a third time.

They asked a supervisor to come and check it out. They investigated and found that the worker was diluting the paste so much that the wallpaper was being put up with water rather than with paste.

With the 30-degree temperature in Manila like Mombasa, the logical thing—the water just evaporates and the wallpaper just rolls off the walls. You don't need the devil or any other sort of other forces to make it happen.

Anyway, they stopped diluting the paste, they put it up, and I think it's still there twenty-five years later.

The principal of the school says, “You see, this often happens in apostolic activities. Things don't work out the first time, and things don't work out the second time, but they work out the third time.” I thought that was a pretty good example.

Often Our Lord wants our effort; our rethinking of things. This whole period of subdued activity is like a divine call to think a little deeper, cast our nets to the other side of the boat (John 21:6), or cast them a little deeper.

With that deeper cast, we get a deeper catch, a deeper understanding of our faith, of what God is asking of us, so that maybe, we function at a deeper level, with a greater virtue, with a greater optimism, or a greater awareness of the cup that He is going to drink.

He said to them, “Very well, you shall drink my cup, but as for seats at my right hand and my left, these are not mine to grant. They belong to those to whom they have been allotted by my Father” (Matt. 20:23).

Our Lord says OK, but He brings them up onto a deeper level; uses these opportunities to explain higher things.

“And when the other ten heard this, they were indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that among the Gentiles, the ruler is lord over them, and great men make their authority felt. Among you, this is not to happen. Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’” (Matt. 20:24-28).

And so, “If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). God always wins.

In our apostolate, we can have this great human and supernatural hope, because we know the seeds that we sow always bring fruit. “My chosen ones do not work in vain” (Isa. 65:23).

Every conversation that we have, every appointment we try to make, and every book or article we send to people, every little detail that comes from the example that we give other people from our lifestyle—all of these are like seeds that God is using to sow all over the world all the time. All this is destined to bring forth great fruit.

The only failure is discouragement. And that discouragement can come from a lack of rectitude of intention, too human an outlook, relying too much on our strength, our own efforts. This is called voluntarism. Voluntas is the will.

The will is a very good thing, but if we focus on our human efforts and desire to get things done, and relying on our own will all the way, there is not much room for the Holy Spirit to work.

We have to leave things very often in the hands of God: “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

There is a phrase in The Way of the Cross of St. Josemaría where he says, “Drop anchor in your divine filiation” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Seventh Station, Points for Meditation).

It's a rather impressive little phrase. If you think of a big ship, that's this big metal anchor, this big weight going down into the water, into the ocean, getting stuck on some rock and holding the ship there with all its tonnage.

No matter what currents may be blowing or what winds may be blowing, it keeps it in that particular place. We need to be anchored in our divine affiliation, mindful of the fact that the instrument is always in the hands of the artist.

The divine artist is bringing things forward all the time, with ideas, with inspirations. Every student who goes to Kibondeni or Kianda or Tewa, even though they may be at home or in online classes or all sorts of other things, the Holy Spirit is at work in their souls. The seeds are growing there on the inside.

“That is why,” says St. Paul to Timothy, “I'm experiencing my present sufferings. But I'm not ashamed because I know in whom I put my trust. And I have no doubt at all that he's able to safeguard until that day what I have entrusted to him” (2 Tim. 1:12).

God permits things so that we would depend totally on Him. We don't have to be disappointed that activities aren't taking place or this person is so far away or doesn't have contact. God doesn't need us for our apostolate. He's the one that's doing it in us and through us.

“Draw strength from your divine affiliation,” said St. Josemaría in The Forge (Point 331). “God is a Father—your Father!—full of warmth and infinite love. Call him Father frequently and tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much!, and that you feel proud and strong because you are his child.”

We trust God. We trust that things will work out. We trust that the fruit will come. And we know it will come. Optimism.

God's ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8). He functions in different ways. Bishop Javier said, “We will trust other people more if we trust more in God. Often, He wants us just to leave things in His hands.”

There's a famous author called T.S. Eliot, and in one of his books he says, “For us, it's only the trying. The rest is none of our business” (T. S. Eliot, East Coker).

“For us, it's only the trying.” An awful lot of things in our apostolate fall into that category. We try, we organize this, we organize that, we throw out the nets here, we throw out the nets there.

Sometimes, like the apostles, we may say we've spent the whole night fishing and we've caught nothing (cf. Luke 5:5). It may seem that our nets are empty.

But it just may be that Our Lord is waiting for another slight little change to bring a great catch. We're always in His hands, seeing that we're apostles.

There's a story of someplace there in Villa Tevere where there's this tapestry with Possumus written on it. It's at the top of three or four flights of stairs. The dining room is on the bottom floor and the get-together is on the fourth floor.

People have to come up all these stairs, and then you come to this tapestry with Possumus. Somebody, after four flights of stairs, used to say, ‘Possumus, Possumus. We can get there, we can make it.’

We're told in the Book of Jeremiah, “Yahweh says this: A curse should be anyone who trusts in human beings, who relies on human strength, and whose heart turns from Yahweh. Such a person is like a scrub in the wastelands. When good comes, it doesn't affect him, since he lives in the parched places of the desert, uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is anyone who trusts in Yahweh, with Yahweh to rely on. Such a person is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream. When the heat comes, it has nothing to fear. Its foliage stays green, untroubled in a year of drought. It never stops bearing fruit” (Jer. 17:5-8).

We trust in God, and we never stop bearing fruit. We have no idea of all the fruits that God is bringing from our life, from our little efforts. That means that we can be very happy, always, no matter what is happening on the surface of the sea of our life.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, “Help me to understand always that you are perfect happiness, even when you seem absent” (cf. August Pierre Laveille, The Life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: The Original Biography).

All the saints went through periods when it seemed that God was absent. We know of many times in the life of St. Josemaría, when he sort of mentions that, with a great sense of humor.

When God seems to be absent, funny things happen. Very often, when he went from Rome to Spain, they would go by car. But I think one time, Don Álvaro liked going by ship, so they went by ship. They went to Naples to get a ship to go to Barcelona, I suppose.

When they got to Naples, as often happens in Italy, there was a lightning strike by all the ship workers, so the ships weren't moving.

That went on one day, a second day, a third day. They spent a whole week in Naples. Obviously, they brought some papers with them to be able to work on things.

But St. Josemaría said, “You know, sometimes there are great mysteries that we'll only get the answer to in heaven. Here we are with so many things to do in Spain, in Italy, and all over the world, the development of the Work. And here we are stuck in Naples because of this lightning strike.”

There may be all sorts of mysteries like that, that happen in our life. We don't understand how the very opposite seems to happen of what we thought might happen.

All the time it's just Our Lord digging us in the ribs and saying, ‘Come on, laugh a little bit. Take yourself a little less seriously. With one click of my fingers, I could do all the things that you plan to do in your lifetime. Don't worry, just leave things in my hands.’

We're called to work at that trust. One of the things that may keep us from that optimism and that trust is fear. Fear can be a tool of the devil to keep us from trusting in God.

“Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26).

He could have said, ‘Why are you discouraged, O you of little faith? Why do you have such a human outlook, O you of little faith?’

The devil plays on our human frailties and weaknesses. There could be a fear of losing material things. There could be a fear of what people will say or what they will think. The fear of death or loneliness.

The only fear we need to have is the fear of not understanding God's love for us.

Quia tu es Deus, fortitudo mea because you, God, are my strength (Ps. 42:2). I put my hope in you, my trust in you (Ps. 56:3, Ps. 25:1,5).

Fear can grip our life, can paralyze our soul, can bring about that misery that stops us from trusting in God.

“And now thus says Yahweh,” we're told in Isaiah, “Yahweh who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the waters, I shall be with you; pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away; should you walk through the fire, you will not suffer, and the flame will not burn you. For I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I have given Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Sheba in exchange for you” (Isa 43:1-3).

One of the pathways that God wants us to trust in Him is trust in the directors—what the Holy Spirit is saying and what the local council is saying to us, even if at times it might seem different, or outside the box, or something a little bit challenging, or the cut that Our Lord spoke about.

We know that's the right pathway, to go in that direction, to drop anchor in our divine filiation, and just listen to what's being said to us, so that we are kept safe from trusting too much in ourselves, in our own ideas.

“There are three important things,” said St. Josemaría in the Furrow, “that you need to do to draw people to God. Forget yourself and think only of the glory of your Father God. Subject your will filially to the will of heaven, as Jesus Christ taught you. Follow with docility the lights of the Holy Spirit” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 793).

That's like a great apostolic indicator. Three important things to draw people to God.

In these days of subdued activity, we're very much in the business of drawing people to God in respect of what's happening around the world.

The Holy Spirit is still super-active in each one of our souls and in our apostolic activities and thrusts and desires.

“Forget yourself…think only of the glory of your Father God; Subject your will filially to the will of heaven…Follow with docility the lights of the Holy Spirit.”

“God is my Father!” he says in The Forge (Point 2). “If you meditate on it, you will never let go of this consoling thought.”

Our God is the God of consolations. Even if we see all sorts of signs that might tell a story of failure—wallpaper falling off the wall or all sorts of things that never happened before—God is my Father.

We find our consolations in Him in the Blessed Sacrament, on the Cross.

He's using this moment of my correspondence to draw souls closer to God. And maybe souls that I don't even know yet. Maybe kids in primary school that have to come to the centers.

At a Methodist conference in Strathmore University about ten years ago, Margaret Roche was giving a lecture and she happened to mention a statistic: that there are 25,000 primary schools in Kenya. I found my ears pricking up: 25,000 primary schools!

She said all the future leaders of society are all in those primary schools. It's a rather powerful thought.

All the future students of Tewa, of Kibondeni, of the University of Kanda—they're all in the primary schools. It's a great way to be thinking, to be focused on 25,000 primary schools.

How can I have an influence there? How can I be in touch with just one of those primary schools? It's a sea without a shore.

These are the people that we want to use to convert the world and change all sorts of things. It's a very consoling thought.

We don't have to worry about the present worries or problems. These kids are enjoying life. They're not worried about things. But they are the future.

“Jesus is my dear friend,” he says, “—another thrilling discovery—who loves me with all the divine madness of his heart. The Holy Spirit is my Consoler, who guides my every step along the road. Consider this often: you are God's and God is yours” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 2).

If we were to think, what contact do I have with primary schools at the moment in rural Kenya? Probably zero. Probably most members of the Work in Nairobi and other places have zero contact as well. It seems to be miles away.

But yet, what a wonderful challenge. We can! Possumus!

Those minds, those hearts, those souls—we have to move other people to have that in mind, to build the future to take care of those primary schools, to see how we can have a finger in that pie to influence.

That's what our lifestyle is all about—our virtue, our correspondence, our holiness. God is using the life of each one of us to plant seeds into the lives, minds, hearts, and souls of each one of those kids, so that when they come in touch with our schools or with our apostolates, the bell rings. Something clicks.

There's been a lot of prayer gone into those souls. Vocations come, the big catch of fish.

Our Lord gives us the grace to see Him in the human. “In the mountain we see His power, in the sunset we see His beauty, in the snowflake His purity. The materialist only sees the mountain, the sunset, or the snowflake” (Fulton J. Sheen, Archbishop Sheen’s Book of Sacraments).

There's no penetrating vision of eternity. Our faith gives us a penetrating vision, a deeper sense of the importance of what's happening in the world and the Church—a great desire to look to the future and to build the future.

We build that with our correspondence. It's to all of this that James said, “We can.” We're saying yes to this great panorama.

God leads us to see the sacramental nature of things. A sacrament is something where there's a visible aspect and there's a hidden aspect.

In ordinary life, there's a sacramental nature in all things, a visible aspect and an invisible aspect. “There’s something divine hidden in the most ordinary human reality” (Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations: Passionately Loving the World, Point 114).

Sometimes we only see the hand of God in retrospect. We look back. It may be that when we came in contact with the Work, something clicked, because somebody, somewhere, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, was praying for souls in primary schools, and that soul was us.

The Holy Spirit has led us along that pathway to be able to say, “we can”, to look forward with great optimism.

We're also children of Mary. The more we become children of Our Lady, the more we learn how to practice her sense of abandonment and faith and hope and trust, all these things.

We can ask Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, that she might help us to use this apostolic day in July to think long and hard and deeply and pray about our world.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

BWM