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THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Thought for the Day # 15 – Monday March 30, 2020

“What Gives you Hope?”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are beginning our second week in confinement due to the global
pandemic that is striking us, everyone, all of humanity. This is the second
week in which the same question arises every day – how am I going to get up
this morning, do we have the strength to get up in the morning, do we have the
strength to live and to love every day?
So today, what is it that gave you the strength to get up this morning?

We can look at an example from the Second World War from the
concentration camps, from a book written for youth by Viktor Frankl, a Jew
who was in the concentration camps and survived.

The question that he pondered was “How is it that I have survived while
men who are stronger than me have perished? Perished in hunger, perished in
suffering, perished in misery. How is it that I have survived?” And while look-
ing back at his experience, he realised that what made him survive was that he
always had a reason to get up in the morning. His wife. This desire, this hope,
this profound sense that it was quite probable that yes, he would be reunited
with his wife one day. He was a man of faith, he had a great regard for God,
great hope in God, but this great confidence was also expressed through little
beliefs, through this very human hopeful expectation of a man who desired to
see his wife again, that his desire would come true. A man who hoped to see his
wife again and who was kept alive by his love for his wife. In the end, it was this
love for his wife that made him survive. Protected by this belief that his desire
would come true, his hope who is God, protected by God. But in daily life, it
was also this sense of probable outcome due to this great love for his wife that
made him survive.

What gives you hope?

Find the little hopes, find those little desires you believe in as you ask
God for the great hope to guide you on your path.

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 26