Tag Archives: financial crisis

The Power of Desire

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The present global financial crisis has shaken our confidence in basic institutions like government and finance. Something’s wrong and has to be fixed, but how?

Can experts tell us? Most of them couldn’t see this crisis coming at all, so they should be careful with answers. I’m sure some strong voices will claim to know what to do. Hitler launched his career in the Great Depression; voices like his will be promising us better times.

Wouldn’t it be good to have this crisis make us all humble realize our limits. The whole world must search patiently for answers. Like little children crossing a busy street, we have to hold hands and stick together.

Quoting from the First Letter of St. John, St. Augustine reminds us of the limits of religious knowledge. “By these words, the tongue has done its best,” he says;  human words can never fully describe the divine reality. We must be humble approaching God. Religions should speak to the world humbly too.

“The entire Christian life is in fact a life of holy desire,” the saint says. That doesn’t mean we stop searching for knowledge; to do so would bed to deny one of our greatest gifts–our minds.  But we’re like containers meant to hold a lot. As long as we live, we wont be filled, nor can we ever be satisfied with what we know– there’s always more.

It’s desire that keeps us open to God’s promised wisdom and knowledge, Augustine says.  Desire must motivate our world today as it stumbles along looking for answers. Deisre and humility.

Hope for Today

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I visited a friend of mine the other day, a retired banker who worked for a major New York bank most of his life. He told me he’s getting more and more depressed by the financial situation taking place in our country and throughout the world. He keeps watching the financial news on television constantly and reading the newspapers and magazines, but  he doesn’t see any evidence that things are going to get better nor any foolproof solution for the situation.

All the experts and the pundits are stumped. He talks  to his friends about the situation and they’re not shedding any light on it either.

Well, of course, neither could I. Nobody has the answers, it seems, for what we’re facing today.

I did tell him, though, that I thought he should give his mind a rest and turn the television off and think of something else. It’s dangerous when we get obsessed by problems.

When I left him,  I thought of a phrase from the story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. “We were hoping…” they said to the Stranger who began to walk with them.

They had put their hopes in something that didn’t turn out: a kingdom, a political order brought about by Jesus of Nazareth. “We were hoping…”  But with his crucifixion their hopes were dashed to the ground.

It”s always important when problems arise, whether personal or social, when things we put our trust in are shaken or destroyed,  that we look for hope to get us through.

That’s what Jesus did for his disciples that day on the way to Emmaus. He raised their hopes. When our hope is strong and well-founded, we keep going and are not overcome by fear.

The Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, which we celebrate today, is a time to strengthen that kind of hope. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” And Jesus began his mission, hard and demanding as it was.

God said that to us at our baptism. We are his children, gifted with his wisdom and power. Who knows what we have to do to get out of the mess we see in our world today? But the hope that rests in God’s  promise  gives us encouragement and  patience to get on with the job until its done.