# From Dire Straits to Hope

An episode of [St. Josemaria Institute Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/966458405), 29 Sep 2026, 27 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1862514/episodes/19863406-from-dire-straits-to-hope.mp3

In this meditation, Fr. Leo Austin draws upon lessons from Scripture as he encourages us to pray for the grace to take better advantage of difficulties and darkness in order to develop a deeper interior life. This movement from discouragement to hope occurs especially in the faculty of our memory, when we process our own reactions in our personal conversation with God. As St. Josemaria wrote in The Forge, no.158: "When our vision is clouded, when our eyes have lost their clarity, we need to go to the light. And Jesus Christ has told us that he is the Light of the world and that he has come to heal the sick.—That is why your weaknesses and your falls — when God allows them—should not separate you from Christ, but rather draw you closer to him!" PAUSE AND REFLECT: • How did I react in a past moment of difficulty or darkness? How could I turn more quickly to Christ's light next time? • How do I use my memory in my conversations with God, to pass my past reactions through the heart of Christ so that he can purify me? • Do I feel spiritually stuck in any way–in my social life or professional life, or by facing my limitations–and how could I instead take this as an opportunity for growth? • Do I hear myself when I voice discouragement? How can I also hear, perhaps in louder volume, the voice of Jesus Christ telling me to lean more on His grace? • What are the “false shelters” under which I tend to hide? THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! If you enjoyed this meditation, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your feedback is important to us, and each rating and review helps expand our reach to more listeners! Support the show

## Transcript

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence; I beg your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.
Some years ago, this priest friend of mine, half-jokingly, half-seriously, in a get together with other priests, kind of opened his heart a little bit. Again, it was not super serious, but I think there was some truth in what he was saying. Because he said, "Listen, guys, if at some point in my life I am about to commit something seriously wrong, some immorality or temptations against my vocation, he said, "Do not bring me moral considerations or my duties, because it will not work. Just tell me, hey, remember your times of prayer. Remember the times that you have spent with Our Lord in prayer," and then he said, "if you tell me that in that moment, that will be enough, because I love Our Lord so much."
And I remember to this day such a testimony, a witness, if you want, because it is really what sustains me, my Lord, is my friendship for you, my love for you, my interacting with you face to face, that gives me strength and sustains me in all my actions, in my moral choices as well, in everything I do. It's my contact, eye contact with you, and I don't want to lose that. Actually, I want to ask you, my Lord, right now, to increase that affection, that love, that fidelity that I want to have for you. And like anything else in spiritual life, in our interior life, there is a capacity, a possibility of growth. And it's good to know that my Lord, I want to grow in my affection for you, in my love for you, and I need to know the conditions that make me grow. And sometimes they are counterintuitive. Many times, my growth comes in moments of difficulty and darkness.
So today in my prayer, under the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint Josemaria and especially the intercession of the saints that are in heaven and the angels, I want to ask you, my Lord: Give me the grace to recognize those things, those moments that are precious for my development, for my growth in my interior life. Sometimes we can go back to our memories and learn from reactions, from moments of joy, darkness, doubts, and again how we reacted, and then what we saw after that troublesome moment happened and passed away, right? Sometimes we can learn from other people. For instance, in books of literature, in history books, right, in the gospel, in the Bible.
Today I want to mention to you, my Lord, or to read the passage in the Gospel in which you healed a woman that was in big trouble and in darkness. The Gospel is very brief, but we can put our imagination and put ourselves in the shoes of this woman when she encountered you. The Gospel of St. Mark says that a large crowd followed Jesus and was pressing in on you, on him, on you, my Lord. Now there was a woman there in that multitude, who had been suffering from hemorrhages, from internal bleeding, for 12 years. That's a lot of time- 12 years. She had endured much, under many physicians, and she had spent all she had, all her money, all her savings. And she was no better, says Saint Mark, but rather grew worse. Just pause for a second, imagine that you are that woman, probably a, you know, normal woman there in that town, faithful Jewish person, virtuous, and then with this internal bleeding, this internal infection, and trying to do your best and not finding anything. And then the desperation a little bit, or the discouragement, and then she had heard about Jesus. And then when she did this, she was verysubtle, very refined, and beautifully so, because she came behind him. She came up behind him in the crowd, and she didn't speak. She just did something marvelous. She just touched his cloak. For she said to herself, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be healed." And that's what she did, right?
The crowds are pressing on you, my Lord. They are speaking. They are inviting. They are asking. And then this woman, in in a very kind of a mysterious way, in a corner maybe, she just says, "I need to touch grace. I need to just, you know, get closer to Him. Saint Josemaria, the founder of Opus Dei, in one of his points in Forge number 158, says something very similar. He says, "When our vision is clouded, when our eyes have lost their clarity, we need to go to the light." When my vision is clouded, when my eyes have lost their clarity, right? The clarity of my eyes, I cannot see it. Then I need to go to the light. And St. Josemaria continues, "And Jesus Christ has told us that He is the light of the world." How simple, how profound, how applicable to me right now. If I lose vision, if I cannot see you anymore, if I am in darkness. Like this woman for 12 years, suffering, no solutions. The horizon seems closed; it seems like a big cloud. Pessimism, realism of, oh yeah, there's no answer for this. Many times, it happens in my interior life, in my life, socially speaking, in my job, family relationships that are broken or wounded, or my limitations, you know, mediocrity that I experienced myself in in my interior struggle. It seems that I'm stuck there. I'm stuck, and there's no way out, right? And then Saint Josemaria or this woman in the gospel, when my vision is clouded, when I just have this horizon that doesn't seem to be open anytime soon, then I need to go to the light that is Jesus Christ. And you have told me, Lord, "I am the light of the world." "I am the light of the world." Just come to me, a warmth and a shelter in the light of Jesus Christ, in your presence, my Lord.
But I want to go back, my Lord, in this time of prayer, in this conversation with you. I want to examine myself and think: Where are those opportunities for me to grow in having more hope, in expecting everything from you instead of from myself or from controlling things, right? And many times, those opportunities are painful ones. So, it's counterintuitive. I really want to open the eyes of my soul to see them, to appreciate them, to be open to that transformation that comes in the worst-case scenario.
I was reading the other day this booklet that I sometimes use in my morning time of prayer. It's the Magnificat, it's a magazine that has the gospel of the Mass of the day and a little commentary. Many times, they use saints, Fathers of the Church, current theologians, or writers. It'sreally insightful in my opinion. It's really a masterpiece because it's simple and deep. The other day I came across this author, Sister Ruth Burrows, and she was pondering the same idea of why my reactions are in such a way sometimes that are a little bit immature or superficial, and how can I improve that? And it's kind of a long quote, but I think it's worth it to read it for our time of prayer, my conversation with you, my Lord. And then she says, "Most good people are ready to make general statements about themselves. I'm a poor thing. I'm good for nothing. I'm not a saint." And then she says, "Well, it is easy to do so. It is quite another matter to face up to the specific defect, specific fault." Right? Sometimes I get lost in circumstances they are not fitting for my growth, or they are not fitting for me, or things like that. Or I tried, but I'm not good for anything. And then we cover ourselves in a false shelter, under a false shelter. We are not seeking you. We are not seeking. I'm not seeking you when I say this. I'm just on my own, right? And it seems humble. It seems very, you know, beautiful, but it's not what you want. You don't want me to be depressed in the sense of spiritually depressed. And then she continues, "We choose how much we see and how much we do not see." Very interesting. It's a choice. The choice is barely conscious, but it is a choice, nonetheless. She says, "sometime along the line, perhaps very far back, perhaps only one step behind, there has been a decision to see no farther. It may have gone something like this: I'm not prepared to go that far. I never bargained for that sort of giving, or I simply must cling to my securities. If they are taken
The woman in the gospel had many reasons to say something similar to what we just read, right? "This is not working. It's pointless. God is not listening to me, or God maybe is so mysterious that maybe I can accept His will, but I don't get it. I don't connect." And I'm not saying that is agnostic. I'm not agnostic, but I live like an agnostic sometimes. If I say so, if I say, "Well, the will of God is so hard, I don't get it, and I keep moving, I bite the bullet, and that's it, and in heaven I will see. And meanwhile, I'm miserable."
That is a dangerous statement, both for my interior life, or for changing the world we need. I want to tackle reality with hope, and hope is way different than this attitude that Sister Ruth is saying here, right? Hope is optimistic, cheerful, giving myself to the situations in life, to my own limitations. And then with the grace of God, with your company, I give, I jump in, I dive in, I just embrace that with love. It's very, very different from "I'm nobody. I will never be a saint, and then well, circumstances are such that whatever," right? I think it's almost like a demon. The whatever demon says, 'whatever, let's keep moving.' Well, no, no, no. Wait a second. Sometimes it's not that I have time to think theologically about every decision or sometimes correct. You can be for a day, you know, moving forward without thinking too much, because it's your duty, it's my duty. But I cannot be there in that situation for weeks. That's not spiritually fitting with the reality of God loving me. It would be again like an agnostic-Catholic, so to speak, if that were possible, right? Which is a little weird, but it happens to me, my Lord. That I just don'tget it, and I'm not loving what I'm doing. It can happen, right?
In the Bible, we have this wonderful story that is in a way similar to the other one of the woman in the Gospel. It is the story of Tobit, the book of Tobit, in which there's this situation that I like a lot because it portrays how ordinary people like us could be epic, right? Sometimes when we read other stories in the Bible, like Moses or Noah, or in Christianity, you know, martyrs, people that were crucified, or captives, or things like that. We think, okay, that's very inspiring, but it's not for me, or I don't think it will happen to me anytime soon. And then when I see those other stories that are really ordinary people, very normal people, and reacting in front of difficulties in an epic attitude, it is to me that's gold. It is gold because that's us, right? That's our calling, and that shows both the grandeur of the mission of God. He's taking care of every single soul, and also the personal freedom of those souls saying, "Yes, I want that. I'm connecting. It's hard. It's painful. Sometimes I even complain. But after meditating, after thinking who is asking me this, and throwing myself into his arms, I can. I continue with joy."
So, in the book of Tobit, we have this Tobit, that is a pious Jew, very merciful with the dead people, risking his life to bury them, giving money to the poor, praying every day, and then risking everything for the sake of others. And then he is kind of put into a very big challenge. Because it's kind of funny, but a bird drops something (I don't want to say what kind of thing) on his eyes, and then he gets blind, blinded, right? Because of this the chemical reaction of the droppings, and then he's not mad at God, but he's in his prayer. He says, "I've been trying to do my best in my life. I've been trying to be honest, be good friend of my friends, a devout Jew expecting the redemption of Israel, and then look at what happened to me. I would rather die!" And he asks for death, right? Which is very kind of, not that we ask to die every day, but sometimes we feel like that? I don't care anymore about anything, my lord. I just don't see anything, and I don't see the point of my efforts.
And then at the same time, in the same book, there's this wonderful girl, Sarah, that poor girl. She's trying to get married, and then she has in the book, at least they say that seven different husbands, but all of them die in the night in which they are about to enter into the relationship of marriage. Because they are impure guys, impure men, and then there's this demon that kills them, right? And one after another, seven husbands, so to speak, right? And then all the maidens in the house think that she is the one killing them. So, she's accused, and she's under a lot of stress, obviously, with that situation. And she's very pure, she's very beautiful, and she cannot get married. And then people are making fun of her and accusing her. So, then she says, "I want to die. I want to die. What is the point of this? It is too much. This is too much for me."
Both of them at the same time are praying, and then the book says that God listens to their prayer, always. But again, ordinary people in situations that are very difficult and humbling or humiliating, praying to God in the depth of their souls, as you and I do, right? And then God sends Saint Raphael the archangel to help them, and it's a masterpiece. The book should be a movie because it's such a great adventurous, legendary book in the Bible. Because Saint Raphael takes the form of a human being and then accompanies the son of Tobias to get some money, some debt that they had, and then in the way that they do this, in their journey, he catches a fish, and then that fish later on is used to heal Sarah's kind of a chamber room where those demons were dwelling. And then they marry; it's a love story. It's super cool. And then later on, they go back. Once they're married, they go back home, and then they use part of that fish to heal Tobit's eyes, and then he's able to see again, right?
What a wonderful, powerful story of love, camaraderie, guidance, mentorship, forgiveness, prayer, and the prayers you can read the book of Tobit. And the prayers of both Tobit and Sarah when they are in dire situations are so inspiring and so human, and so filled with hope, my Lord. And I really like the book, and the whole symbolic part of healing that is in the book about financial issues and also physical problems. And then later on, you can apply it to spiritual healing in your soul as well. So, it is really inspiring book, and it connects with this idea of the woman praying for 12 years, being you know dirty or sick or infected, and then going to Our Lord, and that's so powerful, my Lord.
That's the gain of our suffering and the gain of our hope when we were able to receive this virtue, this grace from you, we are transformed, and we appreciate reality better. We can see better. You should forgive me for this example I want to put right now, but I really had an experience of that, and I'm sorry about the example again because maybe some people feel insulted. But when Spain won the World Cup in the U.S. last summer in New York City, I was watching the game against Argentina. And before the game, my family have a WhatsApp group and were asking me what do you think about the game and I said, "Don't worry this is going to be a 4- 0 or 5-0 game because we're superior by a lot it's going to be a blowout blah blah blah," and they were laughing at me like I said, "No don't worry this is going to be easy game," and guess what the game was not easy right. It's a final so even if you think that you're superior it's always tricky. And then I don't know. I suffered a lot. 20 minutes into the game, I think I just stood up and I couldn't sit down again. In the place where I was watching the game, there were pizzas and whatever. I couldn't eat anything; it was so tense. And then when Spain finally scored in the overtime, at the end of that overtime, it was so much relief and also looking back at the game, I watched the highlights 25 times afterwards because it was so enjoyable after so much suffering to finally win, right? That's what happens in human affairs and also in our spiritual life. But it's an enjoyable reality. Sometimes you sweat, or your stomach is with a knot, or whatever. But we are with God. We cannot forget this. You are with me, my Lord, all the time, all the time.
Sister Ruth, this author that I was telling you about, says for some of us, the decision was taken a long time ago. The decision of I don't want to grow. I cannot do this. It's too much, right? Too much God for me. Maybe that decision was taken a long time ago, and I closed some windows and some doors to you. I just said you cannot enter here. I need my space. I need my reservoir of myself, and you are not allowed to enter because you are too demanding. And then she says, "Can it ever be undone?" Can we heal that part that is deeper, is more difficult? And then she says, "Yes, if we really wish. This is part of what conversion means, 'Lord, that I may see,' must be the constant cry of the heart that wants God."
It's actually what Saint Josemaria said for almost 10 years, if not more, before he founded Opus Dei, he knew that God was asking him something bigger than himself. He didn't know what. He said something big, and something that is made out of love, but I don't know what it is. And then for 10 years, he was repeating these words that a blind man in Jericho repeated as well, Bartimaeus. And he repeated for 10 years, 'Lord, that I may see,' Jesus, I want to see. I don't want to close those doors or windows. I really want to open up to you, and maybe my first prayer would be like Sarah, like Tobit. I'd rather die, or I don't know how to do this. I had enough, okay. But then I abandon myself. I recognize that I'm not alone. I have a guardian angel to begin with. I can ask Saint Raphael to come to help me, Saint Gabriel. I can ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, any of the saints that I like, Saint Joseph for sure, maybe Saint Josemaria, Mary Magdalene, just whenever you feel more comfortable. Or maybe sometimes it's good to ask saints that nobody knows. Hey, who is the last saint in heaven? Who is the saint that was more impatient, or who is the saint that had, you know, a hard time believing in hope. I don't know who he is, my Lord, but tell him or her that I need help. I need his or her experience to cope with his reality. And if he was grumpy or he was kind of short tempered, the better because he's a saint, and he understands me better, and he can accompany me better. So, or souls in purgatory. Sometimes it's good to ask souls in purgatory to show us the way, or to show us how ridiculous sin is, or despair is, because they have experienced that they're purifying themselves, and they would say, "No, no, don't worry, God exists. He loves you. He is with you all the time. Have hope!
And saints that we don't know, and we will never know in this world, will accompany us with great pleasure in the sense of great delight, because they are our brothers and sisters, and they would be so happy to give us a hand.
My Lord, how beautiful, how wonderful, my faith is, and my hope. I hope in you. You said it, and you don't lie. 'I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the light of the world.' St. John said the same thing in the beginning of his gospel, right? Everything that exists came into existence through you, my Lord. Everything that is beautiful, that is wonderful, that is worth it, comes through you. So, there is nothing I should be scared of or be afraid or anything, you are with me.
Let's ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother, and our Guardian Angel, and maybe Saint Raphael, Saint Gabriel, and Saint Michael, to help us, to guide us, to accompany us, as St. Raphael did with Tobias, to find our vocation in case of marriage or other vocations of celibacy, to find you know the peace of our families, the unity in our families in the world. And the guardian angels and the queen of angels, Our Lady, will help us to go directly to Jesus Christ without interference. When our eyes are clouded, when our vision is clouded, when our eyes have lost their clarity, we need to go to the light. We need to go to you, Jesus, our Lord, and our Lord Jesus Christ has told us that He is the light of the world.
I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this time of prayer. I ask your help in putting them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

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