Fear more than hope is the characteristic of our time. This is why it feels right that our Holy father has given us a theme , ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ for the current ordinary jubilee year 2025. Unfortunately, led by fear of a lost future, people seem to be putting up regimes of populist leaders around the globe. Recent elections results in USA are indicating anything but the same. It seems that we are living in an era where we fear more than we hope. With the world becoming a global village under globalization, we fear loss of identity and culture, collapse of ecology and climate change, the consequences of war and deprivation and migration etc. In this atmosphere of anxieties, human heart need the warmth of hope. Hope is a thing with feathers that makes us fly unimagined heights. It inspires us to swim against the tide. Hence, with St. Paul, we say, ‘for in hope we are saved’ (Romans 8: 25). Just as love transforms the one who loves into a beloved, one who hope is also transformed into what one hopes for. We hope for salvation, Jesus being our salvation, we become Jesus-like when we hope. Such a hope needs the endurance of the cross and the endurance of the cross also needs hope. This is why to hope is to be Jesus-like. Endurance of the cross opens us to the hope of resurrection. Hope brings us to the God of promises. God of promises is a steadfast God of hope. This is why St. Paul aptly prays, ‘May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit’ ( Romans 15:13). Faith, thus, develops into hope and love. Hope sustains and carries us through life and enables us to love. St. Peter, our first, Pope exclaims ‘praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth in living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ ( 1 Pet. 1:3).
It is hope that transforms us and the world. God continues to hope in his people and from time to time brings up leaders to ignite faith, hope and love among them. Fr. Faustino De Souza is one such leader who lived a hope-filled life and became a missionary of hope to the people of God. Hope enables us to mediate our past, present and future. It reconciles the present with the past and the coming future. Fr. Faustino as a missionary of hope became a beacon of light for the society of his times that desperately needed illumination. This is why his heart was on fire and feet were on move to reach out to the poor, suffering, orphans and the women of his time. He was a true bearer of hope and as such was a bearer of Christ our Lord. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he effectively read the signs of his time and founded a society of religious women in Goa especially for the daughters of Goa . The mission taken up by the nascent congregation called them to be missionaries of hope. One can discern this from the very formulation of the mission of institute. It says ‘In response to the Father’s Call and in fidelity to the inspiration received by our Founder, we put ourselves at the disposal of the local Hierarchy as their collaborators in the task of Evangelization , the teaching of Christian doctrine , religious formation in general. In particular, we commit ourselves to a live of service -SERVICE TO THE POOR -whether in Christian or non-Christian areas, through the various types of work we undertake in their favour’. With passage of time, his religious institute underwent true ‘aggiomento’ and in the spirit of renewal it discovered new fields of apostolates and methods of apostolic actions remaining faithful to its original charism yet finding ways to be missionaries of hope to the changing conditions of our modern world.
Fr. Faustino’s heart was set ablaze by the love of the mission of Christ to the poor and he embraced every kind of resource that will enable him to become a missionary of hope. He had already worked to get the Franciscan Missionary brothers to set up a orphanage for boys in Duler, Mapusa, Goa while serving as a chaplain there. He embraced what in the light of liberation theology, we have come to call as the option for the poor. As a chaplain, he we collected rice from the cultivators to feed the poor and hungry. Part of this rice was shared for the upkeep of the orphans in Duler. In fact, he carried on his love of the orphans and founded another orphanage that was put under the protection of St. Joseph Vaz in later’s ancestral house. He took up writing ministry and published booklets to inspire the seminarians and girls and encouraged the sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth to take to the ministry of writing. He collaborated with lay people to bring the mission of Christ to its fruition especially for the poor. One thing stands out in this collaborative ministry is the way h put his talent of encouragement at service of the mission. Encouragement was the life breath of his work. It is through the method of encouragement that he ignited the hearts of his sisters and other collaborators and transformed them into missionaries of hope. God continues his mission of hope through the sisters of the congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth in several ways in Goa and outside. This mission has a special love of the poor. Like these sisters of Sancoale , we have the challenge as disciples of Christ to become missionaries of Hope that listen to the cry of the poor and the down trodden. This mission of hope does not just include humanity but also has the imperative to embrace every living being threaten by climate change. Fr. Faustino continues to inspire us to become effective missionaries of hope to humans and the entire order of creation.
