2025 Marist Theme

Pilgrims of Hope – Look Beyond

One day in Calcutta, Mother Teresa took a woman off the street. The woman’s body was a mess of open sores, infested with bugs. Mother Teresa cleaned and dressed her sores while the woman never stopped shrieking and throwing insults. Mother Teresa only smiled at her. Finally, the woman snarled, “Sister why are you doing this? Not everyone behaves like you. Who taught you?” Mother Teresa replied, “My God taught me.” The woman asked to know her God. Mother Teresa kissed her on the forehead and said, “You already know my God. My God is called love.”

Pilgrims of Hope is a theme about a journey with and toward a God of love. A God whose love we know
and experience through the flesh and bone of human kindness, generosity and compassion. This encounter of love is the source and reason for our hope. When we experience love something happens
within us, we feel it, it marks a beginning, and our instinctive response is to return the love that has
been given to us. Our closeness to Christ impels us to go out and live a life bursting to the full with a desire to restore and transform the world. Hope frees us to love, even if giving ourselves for others may involve some sacrifice. We know in our heart the simple truth of the words of St Teresa of Avila, “Christ has no body now but yours.”

What exactly does hope look like? All around us there are people whose lives have become ‘living signposts of hope’ through small or great acts of goodness and compassion. People who show the power of love that lifts others up, brings them back, revives or restores them. At times it is a courageous hope that is not afraid to step out or stand up or be counted. A hope with muscle. At other times it is a humble hope that is received when people simply walk with others, stay with them, or remain faithful. Despite the fragmentation and heaviness of the world, it is a hope filled with the desire or expectation of good things to come. Even though we don’t know what the future may hold,
and regardless of how things turn out, there is hope in the certainty that life has meaning. Above all, it is a hope that does not give in to despair. God is always with us, we don’t walk alone.

What we do know is that responding to God’s love sets us out on an often unknown and ever-changing path or pilgrimage of discovery. Perhaps our pilgrimage might take us to distant and foreign lands. Or like the Indian mystic Kabir, who once said, “I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days…” The longest journey a person may ever take in their life is from the head to the heart. Whatever our path, the Marist Spirituality document Water from the Rock reminds us: ‘Life is a mystery that is revealed as it unfolds. Even after many years, still much remains hidden to us…this continual unravelling of our inner depths is dynamic, provoking and challenging – an ongoing invitation to keep on searching’ (WFR, n.27).

Following Jesus, the source of our hope, takes us on a life-long pilgrimage where we can no longer travel or live on the surface of life. It is a journey that invites us to see, live and experience life more deeply, love more intensely, and care for others more dearly. As Pope Francis challenged the Provincial Leaders of the Marist Brothers at a recent Papal Audience, it is an invitation to look beyond!

“Remain faithful to the service of educating and evangelising young people, according to the charism of Saint Marcellin Champagnat. He knew how to look beyond, and he knew how to teach young people to ‘look beyond’, to open themselves to God, to the horizons of love according to the Gospel.”

And in the promotion of the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis put out the challenge:

“We must fan the flame of hope that has been given to us, and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision..”

In every human being is a heart in search for God. Who knows where this pilgrim journey may lead us.
What an exciting adventure awaits!

Tony Clarke
Director, Mission and Life Formation

Image Reflection

Our journey through life is one marked by encounters, encounters with God and with others, leading us to find hope in unexpected or surprising places. The image of the two figures walking is based on an artwork by Cynthia Carr Kusmer, who paints ‘parable art’ with the aim to invite people into the love of God. The Gospels are filled with stories of transformative encounters with Jesus, just as our own experience of the love of God changes us and renews hope. This transformation urges us to ‘look beyond’ to see the world and eachother differently.

The lower image takes us to one of India’s largest resettlement colonies, Kannagi Nagar, with a diverse population, largely fisherfolk who have suffered the effects of displacement. Many of its occupants have struggled to find employment just because they live in a neighbourhood with a tainted reputation.

In 2020, St+art India commissioned a series of murals to change perceptions about Kannagi Nagar in an attempt to positively affect the image of the neighbourhood and the city’s collective imagination. A mural of two children drenched in sunlight was painted as a way to humanise those living there
and capture the core spirit of the urban landscape, characterised by the life of its young people. The mural was created by artist A-Kill and captured by photographer Jose Mohan.

In the large scale smiling faces of the mural, the young people and residents began to see themselves differently. Our environment is fundamental to our sense of identity, and when it changes, our life changes accordingly. In viewing themselves in a new light, it also led to a transformation in the way the community saw itself: full of life, with hope and a future.

The simplicity of a smile, a kind word or willingness to ‘look beyond’ and see the other with different eyes, are reminders of the small and gentle buildingblocks of hope, God’s love for us.