Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all. ―Emily Dickinson Today, in the first reading from Mass, the verb “will” is repeated seventeen times. I recommend you take a few moments now and read it with new awareness. In this sacred Advent season, God continues to invite us to cast ourselves into his absolute future and set anchor there. In God’s future, nothing handed over by us to him is ever wasted. I find that thought profoundly hopeful. When I lived in Maryland in the late 1980s, I went with some friends to Baltimore to sightsee. While we were walking in what I think was the central business district, I…