Hope in Spite of Present Difficulties

[This article originally appeared in the Lent/Easter 2025 edition of our newsletter; read the rest of it here.]

We seem to be constantly living with the contradictions of hope and difficulty here at Giuseppe Conlon House.

Usually, it is a long, slow grind for those who are guests living here with us, but in the last year, six of the men living with us were granted ‘leave to remain’ and were able to move on with their lives, despite the roadblocks of bureaucracy, the housing crisis, and the ‘hostile environment’. And we were able to help one to get compensation from the Windrush scheme. Lots of work on our buildings has also created a more pleasant, safer house to live in, thanks mostly to Tom, Richie, and Francisco, as well as Jurgen’s team. Tom and Natalie moved into their own home so they could welcome their baby, Silas, after a year and a half of marriage and a real health scare. At the same time, we have a great new team of Catholic Workers who have joined us in the last few months. Francisco, Moya, and Dottie have joined myself and Thomas. Together, these changes have enabled us to re-open the night shelter in the hall, at the same time as continuing to welcome guests into the community house. We welcomed our first guests into the shelter when I started writing this article a few weeks ago. We will soon be full again, with a house abuzz with life, grace, blessings, and challenge.

In the Catholic world, 2025 is a Jubilee Year of Hope. Pope Francis is trying to remind us of the importance not of superficial optimism, but of hope as an active and theological virtue: a deep trust that God is good, that God is love, and that Love has come into the world, and continues to do so with each child born and each act of generosity, care, or tenderness. These are truths we witness in the midst of struggle in a house of hospitality, where we might be ‘entertaining angels without knowing it’ (Hebrews 13:2).

At the same time, living among refugees and asylum seekers, the fate of those trying to get to the UK and the EU is never far from our minds. We remember and pray for those who have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean and the English Channel, in particular during our monthly prayer and protest vigil outside the Home Office. And Thomas has recently pointed out that according to the UN, more people are now dying in the Sahara than in the Mediterranean, at least in part due to EU and UK funding for north African ‘border forces’, who often simply take migrants out into the desert and leave them there to die.

It can be hard for us to reconcile times that seem good for our life and work, but are also times of sadness, loss, tragedy, anxiety, or anger elsewhere. Recently, the Tottenham Refugee Alliance had to give up on finding a house to rent locally where they could sponsor and welcome a Syrian refugee family. The rents are just too high: it was impossible for them to find anywhere within the Local Housing Allowance (or Housing Benefit cap, in ‘old money’). As a result, we have received a good share of what was left of the money raised for that project. We are sad that they were unable to find a house, but grateful to receive the resources they had collected.

Reading the Times

I went on retreat at the start of Advent. It was a challenging and fruitful time, as I pondered where God has brought me to and where I am being led, in the midst of so much uncertainty, as so often seems to be the way with Catholic Worker life. Of course, the uncertainty is not just about our life here in the house. It feels like we are living in a world of so much uncertainty right now.

Jesus tells us to read the times. Reading our times at this moment in history makes me aware of the apparently powerful gods, idols, and demons of the new world order who blasphemously demand our allegiance, or at least seek to determine our futures. Uppermost in my mind right now are AI (artificial intelligence), the climate and environmental emergency, and Donald Trump and his allies both in the US and elsewhere, ‘moving fast and breaking things’ (or more accurately, breaking people), and his frenemies like Vladimir Putin, playing chicken with nuclear threats and preparations for war that should be no more (Isaiah 2:4). The times feel very dangerous as well as uncertain. We all are being played in a high-stakes game of Russian roulette. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently moved the hands of the Doomsday clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. We will write more about this in our next newsletter, when we have had more time to reflect on what is happening.

When I was a teenager, I told my Dad about a news story reporting that the Soviet countries would not let their people leave. I said “that’s terrible isn’t it.” He replied “well, if they did let them leave, we wouldn’t let them in”.

 These seem prophetic words today, revealing that it is not human nature that has changed, but the situation.

It is tragic that so many have to flee poverty, violent conflict, and persecution, which are fed by such things as the arms trade and climate change. On the other hand, at least they are allowed to leave and have the resources and ability to be able to flee. The poorest still do not have that ‘luxury’. And it is the same ability to travel fast and cheaply that so many Brits take for granted when going on foreign holidays that enables many from the global south to at least aspire to follow the wealth and the work to where it has been taken. Rich countries like ours are like King Canute, trying to hold back the tide of human movement. As we tell our house guests, if you look at the Earth from space, there are no lines around it. Borders that keep the poor out are not God’s creation or will. Nor are the injustices and suffering that both push and pull people to move. We pray that refugees are welcomed here. And equally, that they will not have to leave home in the first place and travel safely when they do, as we wish for our own family and friends.