A Lesson in Hope Before a Football Game

What is the reason for our hope? Is hope linked to a solitary outcome, or is it based on something deeper?

Last year was one of ups and downs for me. Some great things I didn’t anticipate happened, and some things I hoped for with every fiber of my being…well, didn’t turn out like I hoped. In fact, as the calendar turned to 2025 and the Jubilee Year of Hope geared up, I admit I had a precarious relationship with hope. Then, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish won on January 1, and a run for the college football national championship seemed like a real possibility. Suddenly, I was putting around my office old banners listing prior championship wins and texting pictures of them to my fellow alumni, asking, “Tell me the truth, is this too hopeful?”

After the first playoff win, I dove into articles about the last few years of Notre Dame football, reminding myself of what strides the team had made, not only in football but in faith as well. For example, Coach Marcus Freeman brought back a tradition of the team going to Mass on game days, and while coaching the Irish, he converted to Catholicism. After the second playoff win, it seemed to me as though the whole nation was talking about the team’s incredible renewal of faith and community. Perhaps I had found a new reason for my hope.

Now, I wrote this post the day before the game. I intentionally wrote these words before knowing the outcome.

As I contemplated this renewed hope dwelling in me, I started to wonder what might happen to this hope once the play clock ticked down to zero. If my team won, would I feel like this was a fulfillment of my hope? Would I even credit the team’s renewed dedication to their faith as the ultimate reason for the win?

If the team lost instead, would I feel like this was punishment for being a bit too hopeful? Would it cause me to consider being more sparing with my hopefulness in the future? Would I sigh and declare, “I guess faith doesn’t win championships after all,” and take down my banner?

Both of these were real possibilities. But what does it mean for my life if I choose to pin the reason for my hope on one solitary outcome?

In 1 Peter 3:15, we read, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Perhaps this verse should add a footnote that reads, “Note well: the reason can’t be tied to a solitary outcome.” If it is, hope will remain something precarious and fleeting. If it is, hope will get harder to acquire or hold onto persistently. Instead, the reason for hope must be something bigger and long-lasting. In his papal bull for the Jubilee, Pope Francis speaks specifically about the true, lasting reasons for our hope:

• First, our faith in eternal life: “We, however, by virtue of the hope in which we were saved, can view the passage of time with the certainty that [we] are not doomed to a dead end or a dark abyss, but directed to an encounter with the Lord of glory.” (19)
• Next, the gift of new life in Baptism: “Buried with Christ in Baptism, we receive in his resurrection the gift of a new life that breaks down the walls of death, making it a passage to eternity.” (20)
• Finally, our human vocation to happiness: “Not some fleeting pleasure, a momentary satisfaction that, once experienced, keeps us longing for more…[w]e aspire to a happiness that is definitively found in the one thing that can bring us fulfillment, which is love.” (21)

In this moment of anticipation, I am pausing to reflect on these true and lasting sources of hope while I am not yet distracted by victory or defeat. That way, when the final seconds have expired, my hope will persist.

Image by Tomislav Jakupec from Pixabay.