The Jubilee of Hope ended January 6, the feast of the Epiphany in many countries, but Pope Leo assures us and beckons us, “We will continue to be pilgrims of hope.” The new pontiff continued Pope Francis’ practice of offering a monthly catechesis on the theme of the Jubilee.

In his final catechesis, given on December 20, Pope Leo focused on the generative nature of hope. That is, hope offers life instead of death. “Without hope, we are dead; with hope, we come to the light.”

Hope is a theological virtue, not a natural feeling. It is different from optimism or a cheerful attitude. God gives us hope, but we can prepare ourselves to receive it. This preparation is more than just thinking positively. It means trusting God even when hope seems impossible. When we trust in God, we become humble and realize that our greatest achievements are beyond our own power.

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Many people think despair is the opposite of hope. Even more so is it narcissism, a persistent self-focus through which we enclose ourselves in a box where we can neither touch nor be touched. In that box, we may think we are king of the world when in fact we are not even the ruler of ourselves. For if we do not rely on God and others, we are subject to the swirling winds of worldly fashion.

The American historian Christopher Lasch wrote that narcissism is not solely a personal malady. Cultural and economic factors drive the creation of personality disorders. He attributed narcissism to therapeutic ideologies, the cult of consumption, growing bureaucracy, changes in family life, the proliferation of images, fascination with celebrity and several other factors. These factors, which he outlined in his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, have become even more intense over the intervening 47 years.

Lasch calls narcissism “a protective shallowness in emotional relations.” One could say that the human person is being dismantled before our eyes, their relational capacity inexorably dismantled.

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Pope Leo says that the challenges of hope go beyond psychology. He points out that many powerful people ignore the cries of the earth and the poor. If we do not listen, how can we help where it matters most? The failure to bring new life is evil.

In his November 22 catechesis, the pope said, “To hope is to take a stand.” Taking a stand can cause conflict and disturb our peace, if peace means staying calm and undisturbed. This kind of peace is like giving others or giving the world the silent treatment.

Jesus offers something different: fire. “Jesus came to bring fire: the fire of God’s love on earth and the fire of our hearts’ desire,” Pope Leo said. “Faced with injustice, inequality, where human dignity is trampled underfoot, where the fragile are silenced: take a stand. … To hope is to understand in our hearts and show in our actions that things must not continue as before.”

When we hope, we do not watch from the sidelines. Jesus’ fire becomes our fire. We risk the scorn of others when we resist threats to human dignity. When we enter conflict, we face three options of how to respond: violence, evasion or dialogue. The results of violence are apparent in many places today: mass death, destruction of entire cities and eventual domination of one people by another. In our personal conflicts, violence may not take the form of armed combat. However, words can also injure and cause lasting harm. Violence is never a solution to division.

Evasiveness is the response of the narcissist. Making a false peace often only delays the onset of hostilities. Even if the enemy goes away, the evasive one may believe they have conquered. But it is the conquest of self-isolation. Bridges are burned instead of built.

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Only dialogue offers hope for better times. Yet even dialogue can make things worse if we do not choose our words carefully. Dialogue can take the form of moral one-upmanship, as in, “I am the better one because I have deigned to dialogue with you.”

Genuine dialogue requires a spirit of collaboration and respect for the other. We can work out a solution together for our mutual benefit. That requires hope, a hope that moves us out of our boxes of isolation. The jubilee should rekindle the fire, the pope said. Pilgrims of hope enter the fire with trust. They generate new life. In times of trouble, we cannot run and hide. We need to talk.