Ambassadors of Hope
by Bishop William Joensen | October 17, 2025
As we enter the last quarter of our Jubilee Year of hope, there is so much weighing on our hearts. The images and stories in the news and social media covering matters ranging from politics to finance and international relations are chock full of discord, turmoil, and brutally calculated acts of violence perpetrated against the innocent.
For many, mounting anxiety and surging sources of division incite the temptation to withdraw from others. One could simply shrug one’s shoulders and resign oneself to the fact that there’s always conflict somewhere. But at this particular moment in human history, it appears to be more pervasive. Personally, while I don’t want to adopt a bunker mentality, I also don’t want to disregard the stakes at hand blithely. God has allowed us to experience a crucible of faith and hope that we can try to dodge, but still seems to envelop us no matter where we turn.
We feel ourselves being sifted and purified so that everything in us which is not in accord with the Spirit who grounds our faith and hope will be burned away like dross. The apostle Peter charged the first Christians to keep their sights fixed on the salvation that awaits us, “In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Pope Leo XIV, Peter’s successor, maintains that hope doesn’t just happen. It’s a choice. We Catholic Christians are like those to whom Saints Peter and Paul preached, who were confronted with choices in the midst of physical and spiritual oppression and violence: What is our Truth? For whom do we live? What sacrifices are we willing to make to stay true to the Gospel, to honor and follow our Savior to the end of our days?
Do we identify with Paul’s belief that we are afforded the chance to lend our sufferings and struggles for others and for the sake of God’s saving project? Are we convinced that in our own flesh we can fill up “what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (see Colossians 1:24)?
On top of all that Paul endured, he spoke of his “daily anxiety for all the churches” that superseded whatever other personal sufferings he experienced (2 Corinthians 11:28). The anxiety Paul felt as spiritual father of these churches must be analogous to what parents, pastors and school administrators feel as they are entrusted with the care of their children. Yet even bearing this burden, in the Christian way of living in a world that revolves around the Cross, is cause for joy, for hope in Resurrection.
Hope “keeps man from discouragement, it sustains him during times of abandonment. It opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1818).
In addition to Jesus’ promise to be the Good Shepherd who draws us through the valley of darkness to restful waters, what personal signs can we point to that would account for the hope that is in us (see 1 Peter 3:15-18)? For me, in the midst of this spiritual “high pressure system” weighing upon us, my soul was lifted during the recent annual weeklong workshop for our diocesan priests, where I gazed at the brothers coming forward to receive our Eucharistic Lord. I was moved in love and appreciation for these men who have dedicated their lives to helping us cultivate connections with Christ and one another. They gave me an infusion of hope.
I find hope in our parishes celebrating an unbroken legacy of faith, like St. Mary in Shenandoah marking its 155th anniversary, and both St. Mary in Avoca and Holy Cross Parish near Elkhart celebrating their 150th anniversaries.
And I see hope in the visage of those who serve our communities through Catholic Charities and those who are served by Catholic Charities. Pope Leo shares this perspective. In a message Sept. 10 to the annual meeting of Catholic Charities USA Network, he said, “You become ‘agents of hope’ for the millions of people who approach the Church in the United States of America seeking compassion and care. Many of those who you serve are among the most vulnerable, including migrants and refugees.”
And of those who are served, he said: “In a special way, Catholic migrants and refugees have become missionaries of hope in many nations, including your own, by bringing with them a vibrant faith and the popular devotions that often re-energize the parishes who welcome them.”
Behold, I find hope in God as we do something totally new in our Des Moines Diocese. For on Thursday, Oct. 16, Victoria Carver will become a diocesan hermit in a Mass of Consecration to be celebrated at the Basilica of St. John. It’s been a long path of mutual discernment, direction, and spiritual sifting for this mother and grandmother to have arrived at this point where she will profess vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and will promise to bear witness in a largely “hidden life” to Christ’s particular love for every person.
Other dioceses in our country have admitted women and men to the “eremitic” life bound by the oversight of their local bishop; Victoria will be our first. She will sit at Christ’s feet in prayer and adoration for the better portion of each day, bringing before Our Lord people near and far who are lost and who suffer, and all who do not truly know Jesus.
Victoria makes no secret of the fact that she is a recovering alcoholic who depends each day on the grace of God to live a free and sober life. I once heard a commentator describe an alcoholic as a “frustrated mystic.” Victoria is a resurrected, recovering contemplative with mystical tendencies. Yet she must continue to “lean into” and upon the Cross of Jesus, for the challenges of her new rule of life will no doubt confront her with desert times where she will be tempted against hope to think God has left her to her own devices.
In a book by an anonymous monk, “The Hermitage Within,” that Victoria (and I) found enormously profitable in describing the essence of the hermit’s vocation, I note these reflections on hope that I believe are applicable for all of us who live our vocations in a world that often seems like a spiritual desert from which there is no easy escape:
“All the while you hope, that is, for the coming dawn: for hope is rooted in faith. This may not feel true anymore. But you are a witness to hope too and must not draw it from any other source than God’s promise: not from any assurance of your merits or of leading a good life.” “In the winepress of temptation, you will squeeze out the self-confidence filling you, to the last drop. For a while, God will allow you no glimpse of the end of this horrible night and allow you to imagine that, whatever you do, you are doomed to eternal darkness” (p. 46).
The anonymous monk’s counsel in the face of such suffocating darkness: “Never turn back. Never turn against your surroundings or the way things are: night is within you and obeys God. . . . Before light, there was darkness; from darkness God brought forth the light of day.” “God expects this faith of you. Do not fail him. He who loves you is hiding in the gloom, waiting to meet you there” (p. 48).
May Victoria and all of us cling to hope, day-in, day-out. He who loves us never abandons us. In our respective vocations, may we help to heal our world by living as ambassadors of hope.