Every day we hear new assignments of blame for the financial mess we are in. Competing economic theories fault either the lack or the lavishness of government spending for the failure of our economy to produce the jobs, revenues and incentives to meet our demands. Commentators lecture us on our misunderstanding of how government really works even if no one can seem to agree on how it does or even should.
Whether or not one may aptly apply a model of family responsibility to the lofty affairs of state (for which pundits might scold us), it is difficult for many people to accept that borrowing more money than one can reasonably foresee being able to return is not a moral course of action. The accumulation of debt is not a way to make a home a safe harbor for raising a family. The magic of being able to print money does not increase the security the state’s mere word can offer if it means everyone’s holdings are devalued through inflation. It seems that there is no way to avoid the reckoning that we have come to about the growing distance between our expectations and our ability to pay for them.
Frustration and anxiety over our current financial and political challenges need not lead us to hopelessness. For one thing, the Church has seen the rise, fall and transformation of many socio-political structures over its history.  Add to that the long flow of salvation history, with its many leaps and setbacks, preceding the advent of Christ and we have much to reassure us that God will not abandon us in our struggle if we have confidence in the loving arm of our Savior stretched out to us.
Remember last Sunday’s Gospel. Peter, with his vision fixed firmly on Christ, was himself walking on water until he became frightened by the wind and spray of the churning seas around him.  Recognizing our utter helplessness is the first step in any significant leap forward in faith and confidence in the saving power of our Lord.
In times past, during periods of political and economic unrest, the Church has almost always emerged as a beacon of hope. Sometimes it has been its official leadership. Our own bishops have not been silent in articulating their vision and raising concerns on the shape of our public policy. Often enough, however, leadership has risen from unlikely or unexpected quarters, such as the comunidades de base in Latin American or religious communities that dedicated themselves sacrificially to the poor whose nurture and education would otherwise have been neglected. The slums of Calcutta helped give rise to the missionary sisters of Mother Teresa. A static medieval society, where the status of rich and poor were fixed from birth, was the soil out of which a St. Francis of Assisi sprung. St. Ignatius of Loyola only found his true identity in the greater glory of God when a cannonball shattered his leg, dimming the vainglory of a military career.
It is no mere platitude to recall that the Church is built on the blood of martyrs. Those who witness to the power of God in their lives can only be truly credible when it is clear to all that the source of their strength comes from outside themselves. It is in our own weakness and inadequacy that the power of God is most glorious as the Lord always chooses the weak to confound the mighty.  It was, notably, the path chosen for God’s own and only Son.
Perhaps it is no accident that in our own Diocese of Brooklyn, both our parishes and our diocesan institutions are simultaneously undergoing a trying but, we trust, transformative process of soul-searching, restructuring and strategic planning. How we do this, with prayer, charity and transparency, has the potential of modeling how other organizations might proceed. All our efforts, however, will not be effective unless attested to by our lived example.
The Cross remains our hope and the sign of our glory in the redemptive love of our Savior. Remembering that, and clinging to the only rock of salvation that humanity can count on, our prayer can be one of confidence that even the worst of times may prove the best occasion of grace for the world through a revitalized Church community. To be a harbor of hope is, after all, our calling and challenge.