“These days Latin American theologians speak of la esperanza transformadora, “transforming hope.” Without it life is pessimistic; little movement toward change takes place. But when transforming hope resides in a person, it generates the energy we call anger and initiates creative action. Perched in the soul, it sings its song persistently. It cannot be dissuaded.

“Christian hope is both realistic and optimistic. It is realistic because it recognizes life’s tragedies: sickness, sin, infidelity, suffering, natural calamities, violence, war, death. But it is optimistic because it trusts in a new heaven and a new earth, where sin and death are vanquished. Believing in the words of the Creed, on which we rarely reflect, it looks forward to “the resurrection of the body” and “the life of the world to come.”

“In the midst of one of the Czech Republic’s most difficult times, Václav Havel stated: “Either we have hope within us or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul…. Hope in this deep and powerful sense is the ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed…. It is this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do here and now.” That kind of hope is the feathered thing that perches in the soul—and enables our hearts to soar.