As I look out my office window at a bleak and cloudy day, I can’t help but wonder about the childhood dreams I had. I would often daydream about a wonderful prince galloping into my life and taking me off to live with him in a majestic castle. Or, invincible me conquering bad folks and righting wrongs. Yes, “Geralyn the warrior princess” was alive and well when I was a child. In the middle of these daydreams, I would often picture my artwork becoming famous and giving voice to how God can be found in the midst of our lives.
As these childish dreams changed as I matured and began studying to be a teacher, I would imagine that a student who struggled to learn would be helped by my caring or by the way I presented a subject. This musing was a result of my own difficulty in learning as a student. I wanted to take advantage of the adversity that I experienced and make it easier for those students who had trouble learning.
I share these thoughts as I continue my series on hope. Pope Francis wrote in his autobiography, “… Hope is above all the virtue of movement and the engine of change: It’s the tension that brings together memory and utopia to truly build the dreams that await us. And if a dream fades, we need to go back and dream it again, in new forms, drawing with hope from the embers of memory.”1
Hope. Dreams. Can you dream of a world without war or hunger or violence? Yes! Such hope gives flesh to our dreams, dreams to make the world a better place. Such hope makes the vision of God present in today’s world. Such hope is rooted in God and the belief that He will give us “the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God.” (CCC 2090)
So, dream dreams that allow the whispers of God to be born in the world for today!
1Francis, et al. Hope: The Autobiography. Random House, 2025.
By Sister Geralyn Schmidt, SCC, Special to The Witness
