Hope in a Divided World Retreat Day

Hope in a Divided World Retreat Day

If we watch the television and read the news, it can be very easy to have a feeling of being overwhelmed by the divisions within the world. We see one country against another, one group against another, one neighbour falling out with another, and we ourselves can battle for years with our own inner wars.

St Paul wrote two thousand years ago that the triad of virtues was that of faith, hope and love (1 Cor. 13:13). We’ve heard many sermons on the virtue of faith and many on the necessity of love, but consideration of the virtue of hope seems to have been rather neglected. Perhaps we’re not quite sure what hope is when it comes to practical daily life, and we regard it simply as optimism or expectation.

This retreat day will offer an opportunity to reflect upon the virtue of hope, and how it can contribute to healing a divided world. What do we need to do in order to be missionaries of hope to our local communities and to the wider world? What voices within ourselves might we need to confront, in order to let the grace of God heal our own inner divisions? How can we grow in mercy and forgiveness – which are so important to allowing hope to flourish within us and around us? How can we continue to choose from the Land of Hope, rather than from the Swamp of Cynicism or the Desert of Despair?

St Paul’s Lutheran Church Hall
August 10
9:30am – 3:30 pm
Donation only, bring something to share for morning tea and your own lunch.

Contact Anne-Marie Doecke 0408 348 647 if you are coming.