Struggling to Stay Hopeful for Justice

Today’s reflection is by Bondings 2.0 contributor Phoebe Carstens.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time can be found here.

Over these past few Sundays, it seems that the Word I read and hear proclaimed again and again at liturgy turns my mind toward the topic of God’s justice. It is indeed the first thing we hear this Sunday in the first reading from Sirach: “The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.” And while the homilies I’ve been hearing lately call for steadfast hope in that justice, I must admit I find myself struggling to feel that hope. 

Every morning, I awake to hear of yet another tragedy, another betrayal, another attack on a marginalized community. Each night, I fall asleep with a sense of dread for what is happening in my country and in my world. I try to turn each moment into a prayer, but often all I can come up with is a wordless longing that God be present. I know that God’s justice is greater than the world’s justice, and I know that no cry of the poor and oppressed goes unheard–and yet, each day brings a new blow. 

Wordless, exasperated, frustrated: these are what God is getting from me lately. These feelings are not  a great demonstration of hope in God’s justice, and so it is easy to berate myself. I don’t have enough hope, I don’t have enough faith, I am being lured into despair. 

So, when I initially read today’s second reading, I felt like grumbling. “I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand,” Paul says. “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”

“Good for you,” I want to scoff. “I’m barely limping along.”

But, as I sit with this passage, it begins to take a different shape. Perhaps–rather than like a triumphant marathon winner– I can imagine Paul looks a little more like how I feel: namely, tired. Paul knows what it means to be overwhelmed, overcome, and frustrated. Paul s had to work hard, and struggle with God, and wrestle with God’s people. At one point, Paul cries out, “At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me.”

As a trans person in America, and a trans person in the Catholic church, I know that feeling. 

Yet, though worn out by the the persecution, Paul goes on to say: “May it not be held against them!…The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.”

Despite all that he has faced, and despite everything that could drive him to despair, still Paul returns to that which grounds him: a belief in God’s deliverance. 

This thought is not bombastic certainty or self-righteousness which is exemplifed bythe Pharisee in today’s Gospel who insists, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity!” Rather, this is the humble hope of one who believes in God’s justice, who has kept the faith even when all else has deserted him. Surely, Paul felt afraid, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Even so, he trusted God.

These days, I cannot pretend that I am not afraid. There is simply too much to fear that my rights will continue to be infringed upon, that my friends might get abducted on the street, that many people in my community will lose access to basic essentials like food and healthcare, that hatred and violence will continue to be normalized. I cannot claim that I don’t fear these things everyday. 

But what I can do is try to remind myself that these fears do not mean that I am giving up hope in God’s justice. Though I can’t always see God’s hand, I know that it is there. Though I can’t make sense of the finish line, I know that somehow I am still inching towards it. I will continue to pray for mercy, and I will continue to hope for justice–even if my prayer is wordless, and my hope without shape. 

Following Paul’s example, I will avoidt the self-righteousness of the man praying about his own virtue, and rather seek the humility of the tax collector who struggles to even raise his eyes to Heaven. That’s the only way that I can hold together the world that I see and the justice of God that I believe in, praying with Paul: “To God be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

—Phoebe Carstens, New Ways Ministry, October 26, 2025