O Wonderful Hope

O Wonderful Hope,

Promising to be helpful even after death,

A promise faithfully fulfilled.

800 years of Wonderful Hope,

Borne out in a way of life

That carries the seedlings of Hope

For our world today.

Prayer enshrines the Hope

that holds a God-view of this universe,

treasures its beauty and the life it breathes

in all its facets,

be it rock, or blade of grass, or human heart,

and lifts it up, in gratitude, as sacred.

Oh, What a Wonderful Hope!

Study holds the hope that we might search together

for new understandings of our differences,

finding in each tradition the gems of truth

that sparkle with the vastness of God’s diversity.

Oh, What a Wonderful Hope!

Community is a shared hope

that we might understand and spread the news

that all the people of this earth

should have its wealth, its splendor, and its opportunities in common,

and when in truth we call another sister, brother,

we know our home is also theirs,

and their life’s portion ours to bear.

Oh, What a Wonderful Hope!

Service is the face and hands of Hope,

The pulsing word of God enfleshed in us.

It offers comfort, works for peace,

Speaks loudly for the world’s enslaved,

The trafficked and the refugee,

And challenges the voice of power,

With Magnificat audacity.

This is the Hope, the Wonderful Hope,

Our preaching life is asked to be,

Throughout the coming centuries.

Oh, What a Wonderful Hope!

Elizabeth Ferguson OP