When I first pitched writing a reflection on hope, Carmel, and international development back in December, I couldn’t have foreseen that I would be given so many opportunities to exercise hope in the months that followed. The substantial humanitarian funding cuts from several major governments has essentially upended the humanitarian and international development sectors, and has already led to an exacerbation of suffering and deaths among the world’s poorest.
Several weeks ago, having read updates on the funding cuts, I exchanged some choice words with a colleague, which ended with “and frankly it just makes me ashamed to be a Christian.” My colleague told me to go for a walk, so I stomped off to my nearest church and just spent several minutes crying in front of the Blessed Sacrament. “Where are you, God?” was my prayer.
“He puts forth his arm in strength,
and scatters the proudhearted.
He casts the mighty from their thrones
and raises the lowly.” – from Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:52
I first began working in the International Development sector in 2020, just after I began discerning whether or not I had a call to Carmel (this is another story, but I remain happily a layperson). What are you to do while waiting to become a nun? An internship at an International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO), was the answer in my particular case. I had freshly graduated with a Master’s in Theology and wanted to put the learnings from my dissertation – on the theology of suffering in the works of St John of the Cross – into practice.
Learning about the work that development actors (INGOs, NGOs, UN agencies, and, indeed, faith groups and community organisations) do quickly dispelled any naivete or overly spiritualised understanding of suffering. I would like you to spend a moment sitting with the following figures:
- 122.6 million people (roughly equivalent to the entire population of Japan) are currently forcibly displaced worldwide.
- 2 billion people (26% of the global population) lack access to safe drinking water.
- Almost 1.3 billion people live on less than $1 a day.
- 250 million children worldwide are not in school.
- Over 40% of the world’s population are considered highly vulnerable to climate change, making them more susceptible to drought, famine, and floods.
While we can say in confidence – for Christ said it – that “Blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20), I often sit and wonder how much consolation it must be to those in, say, Sudan or Gaza, to know that God is with them in their suffering, and how far we, in our relative comfort, have strayed from Christ and his message.
When I pray, the inequalities of the world (and our own societies) pull strongly at my heart. It was through the Carmelite saints that I gained some assurance that we should continue praying through dryness. Sitting silently with God can be very painful, but we believe that after the Crucifixion came the Resurrection. As St John of the Cross teaches us, a seeking of spiritual or temporal sweetness makes us ‘spiritually speaking, enemies of the cross of Christ.’ (Prologue, Ascent of Mount Carmel).
One of the most frequent criticisms that I have had put to me by fellow Catholics since I started working in international development is that I’m “risking making faith political.” To those people, I could direct attention to several governments and say that while our policy views differ, faith very much is political. Just as Christ was Word made flesh, so too should our faith live out in the public sphere. As St Teresa famously said, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.” You can’t separate this from politics and social justice.
So, to hope. As St Thérèse wrote during her own crisis of faith, “When I sing of the happiness of heaven and of the eternal possession of God, I feel no joy in this, for I sing simply what I want to believe.”
With the current funding crisis, job and programme cuts, restructures, and the uncertainty of the sector all hanging over us, I have begun to ask my colleagues where they find joy and/or hope, to try to help us all look at something positive. Three points came up multiple times: creation, creativity, and community. Even in the most desperate of situations, our work shows us the strength and resilience of individuals – each of whom has Christ dwelling within – and challenges us to continue to learn from them, be witness to them, and help to keep God’s creation safe for all of us to enjoy.
My work has challenged and deepened my faith just as much as my time in the convent. Just as in the convent, I do as St Teresa taught and sit silently with Christ in Gethsemane as he, too, weeps.
As I write this on Easter Sunday, I pray that we Christians can bring the risen Lord to those who suffer and that we may act in a way that is worthy of the One Who is Love, and say, “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Sophia M. White
