The Mom Weekly Volume 92: May 13, 2025
You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.
(I don’t have any notes this week, but I wanted to be sure to say)
Remember how much I love you,
Mom
Hope Does Not Disappoint
True confession: Sometimes, if I wake up too early—but not too early to go back to sleep— I will read on the Substack app. I love Substack and have a number of paid subscriptions, and even more free ones.
Usually in the early morning hours, I have prayers that I want to say, and if there’s enough time, I will also pray the Office of Readings. But I’m not perfect, and sometimes I open Substack, or another app, first.
Unfortunately, Substack has a social-media type of feature called “Notes” and when you open the app, Substack takes you to Notes, not to your subscribed publications. So often, I see random links to other Substack accounts from people I may know or not, especially ones that are popular. It’s kind of like if I go onto Facebook and share someone else’s blog post, Facebook post, or others, and say, “Check this out.” That can be a real time drain!
Anywho, the other morning I opened it before my prayer apps or even praying (mistake! I know! I’m just being honest). And several people had linked to someone’s Substack post about how AI is basically the end of the world and the end of normal jobs, etc. The looong post was telling this particular person’s story, and it was bleak, both this person and their situation, and the comments were even more so.
Family, it really got me down! I just thought: there are so many people without hope and saying things that may or may not be true. Many if not most, of these people do not see a point to life or of living in community, much less about living any kind of faith life. Even I don’t know this person, or anyone connected to this person, it made me sad for all of them.
So I thought, well, now it’s time to look at my subscribed publications instead of spending any more time here in this place of woe. I’m only kind of kidding! One of my paid subscriptions is Recovering Catholic (“For people seeking wholes and freedom in the living tradition of the Church.” Now there’s a tag line) I do not know the author, Sarah Carter, personally, but I like her theological style and writing, and I want to support people doing good in the world. And today it helped me.
Sarah has a post called “Leo” about our new Pope Leo XIV. She makes the case that by choosing the name Leo XIV, he may be saying something about how he wants to engage with the world:
In the midst of a rush of social, political, and cultural change that one can only imagine felt tremendously chaotic, Pope Leo XIII wrote a dizzying 90 encyclicals on topics ranging from liberalism and socialism to freemasonry to the Eucharist and the Rosary, and well, pretty much everywhere in between. One can detect in the writings of Leo XIII a strenuous grappling with the times in which he had been called to lead the Church, a willingness to engage with modern ideas in their positive aspects as well as their limitations, and most importantly, a desire to bring the voice of Christ to bear on the ‘joys and the hopes, the grief and the anxieties’ of the age. He recognized that Church triumphalism needed to be done away with—a new approach was needed.”
The Holy Father, in his first address to the cardinals, a few days later, spoke to this moment, and particular to those concerned about AI (like the sad post that inspired this reflection).
Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
(Digression, but one I’m excited about: Sarah announced that she’s doing a read-along of Rerum Novarum, the famous encyclical from Leo XIII that is “a clear and compelling articulation of first principles” in social teaching. I have never read it.
So I plan to do this read-along, and finally say I have read this great encyclical. Here is Rerum Novarum on the Vatican website. I’m going to find a way to get this into my books app so that I can take notes on it and highlight different things. End of digression!)
Sarah’s post, as well as other coverage of Pope Leo XIV, helped get me out of the depressing place the post had left me, early in the morning. It gave me hope, and it reminded me that Pope Francis named this year the Jubilee of Hope. (The opening line of his announcement–“Hope does not disappoint”–inspired the quote that opens this Weekly!
And I realized that the ability to have hope and look forward to good things, is almost like a superpower. It should be the mark of every Christian.
Pope Leo XIV’s first words on the balcony after his election are so appropriate to reflect on here. I’d like to close with those words, and encourage you to read through them slowly:
Peace be with all of you!
Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for God’s flock.
I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, and all people, wherever they are, all of the people, all over the world. Peace be with you!
It is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.
We can still hear the faint yet ever courageous voice of Pope Francis as he blessed Rome, the Pope who blessed Rome, who gave his blessing to the world, the whole world, on the morning of Easter. Allow me to extend that same blessing: God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! All of us are in God’s hands. So, let us move forward, without fear, together, hand in hand with God and with one another other! We are followers of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as the bridge that can lead us to God and his love. Help us, one and all, to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, joining together as one people, always at peace. Thank you, Pope Francis!
I also thank my brother Cardinals, who have chosen me to be the Successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a Church, united, ever pursuing peace and justice, ever seeking to act as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, in order to proclaim the Gospel without fear, to be missionaries.I am an Augustinian, a son of Saint Augustine, who once said, “With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.” In this sense, all of us can journey together toward the homeland that God has prepared for us.
Interesting/Notable
Since there are a number of extended family members having graduations this spring, including two in our own nuclear family, I wanted to include this
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