At long last, because of various unexpected developments, we experienced a different Christmas at the end of 2021. On one hand, the government’s easing of restrictions last November made possible merrymaking during the end-of-the-year holidays across the country. The traditional Filipino Christmas gathering of families with friends and kin was a sight to behold! For most of us, it was a celebration long-overdue, not having been possible during the first year of the pandemic. On the other hand, an unforeseen calamity visited our country in mid-December. Typhoon Rai (locally named Odette) battered the southern part of the Philippines, turning the people’s excitement and anticipation of Christmas into mourning and agony. Before exiting the country, the tropical storm devastated the lives and livelihood of an estimated 2 million individuals. At about the same time, the Department of Health reported cases of yet another COVID variant, Omicron, of which the OCTA Research Group predicted a renewed spike in early 2022. We may be tempted to say: Just when you think things are getting better, a new crisis comes! Can we still continue to hold on? How are we to face 2022?
In results of a survey made in December 2021, around 9 in 10 Filipinos said they are entering 2022 “with hope rather than fear.” One may ask: How come? What’s the reason for this hope? Is it because more than half of the population has been fully vaccinated? Are we hopeful because the candidates we are supporting in the coming elections will deliver on their promises for a better life for Filipinos? Maybe so. But for people of faith, hope has a deeper source: God’s word. For Christians, it is in every book of the Bible, especially the Gospel.
In a reflection shared by Cardinal Tagle in an online media conference in June 2021, he said, “The Gospel we are communicating is a message of hope… This Gospel of hope should enable us to communicate with hope, and to communicate hope in the face of trying times.” He clarifies that this hope is God’s gift… a grace that we cannot produce. But if we pray and ask God for hope, He will surely give it to us.
Cardinal Tagle stressed the need to refocus our understanding of hope: “Very often, we feel hopeful when things go smoothly… when we achieve what we had planned… But when we go to the Bible, hope springs true in moments of difficulties, in moments when I seem to be barren, and when even religious experience seems absurd… But that’s when true hope springs. It is in those arid moments that God wants to give, wants to awaken the hope that comes only from Him.”
“Hope tells me that amid all the trials, all the conflict, all the violence, death, and loss of life, we know that God has triumphed,” he affirmed.
As we dream of better and brighter days, may this year 2022 inspire us all to set out on a new journey. Let us not focus on the forces of evil or lose our sense of discernment, but always “look for the signs of hope… signs of civility, goodness, solidarity, and compassion” in our world.
