HOPE: Already, for the future, always a little for the deceased 

The word “hope” means much more than everyday use would suggest, for example when we tell ourselves to “keep hoping.” In the expression “keeping hope alive,” where does the word “keeping” usually come into play? It’s when hope wavers, or when we have serious grounds for doubt or concern. Curiously, the more this is the case, the vaguer the term seems to become, and the fuzzier its object… And yet, if hope may seem to wear thin after some spontaneous manifestation—like the rainbows of the first pandemic spring—it can also grow stronger, both in terms of precision and of patience.

In the case of naming a new mausoleum, hope is worth exploring. 

The word “hope” projects us into the future. So when we tell others that we’re hopeful, we’re relying—without seeming to—on references that have been handed down to us. These landmarks forge the very value of our experiences and creations; we hope in the name of something that we have been told is desirable, and that we now believe to be so. And we don’t need to list empirical, verifiable facts or describe our mental and emotional state to justify their use: on the basis of our more or less vivid awareness of what’s happening in the “here and now,” we stammer out a dream, the dream of a possibility that’s already in the making. Finally, when we say, “I’m hopeful,” it means we’re looking forward to the future. If we project even further, we give direction to our aspirations.

Hope for the future inevitably leads us to the limits of our existence. And yet, because it is dynamic, this precious hope spans our existences to extend beyond what we can verify with our senses.

The future of the deceased lies outside time, in the realm of boundless hope, in the realm of eternity: suspended, infinite time. But the privilege of successive generations of human beings is precisely to hope that this “outside of known time” is of the order of another existence: when we think of the deceased and speak of hope, our imagination forms the wish that “they be well, somewhere.” And sometimes even more than just ‘well,’ even if that means idealizing their fate. This spiritual propensity can be found in all civilizations, even if it doesn’t encompass all that they are.

Since the middle of the 20th century, however hope for the fate of the deceased seems to have grown imprecise with the weakening of institutional beliefs in an afterlife. The fact remains that this heritage shapes our sensibilities, regardless of the strength and nature of our religious beliefs. And these religious beliefs provide a whole range of meanings.

It is in this context hope as a value that draws from both the Western and Middle Eastern worlds. Indeed, the Christian world has condensed the meaning of hope into the person of Christ: he embodies both the redemptive sacrifice for the faults of the human race and the singular symbol of salvation: through resurrection¹, he gives an upward impulse to human aspirations. 

In this upward movement, “hope for” something is not only about situations; it develops and becomes the underpinning of “hope in” something, which is about the sense of being. This hope sustains human beings as they face the suffering and anguish of finitude: it contains them and transposes them into an eternal spiritual life.

In other words, this hope transcends the painful awareness of our destiny, the heartbreak of separations, not only by bringing us some consolation, but by articulating them as part of a symbolic universe that gives them a broader meaning. And this expanded meaning is a consolation in itself! To the point that  it offers an escape from time into the eternal. For Charles Péguy, “Hope—this little wisp of a girl—sees what is not yet and what will be/She loves what is not yet and what will be/In the future of time and eternity².”

The theological virtues evoked by Péguy paraphrase Saint Paul. For biblical scholar Anne-Marie Chapleau, with whom I was discussing this topic, “Saint Paul evokes faith, hope and charity (or love) in his first letter to the Thessalonians, his earliest text (1 Thessalonians 1:1-3). The importance of relationship, as found in modern theology, could already be discerned.”(…) 

She continues: “Likewise, in the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul warns against an ‘everything’ composed of prestige and human achievements that he likens to a ‘nothing’ on the existential level, because it is devoid of love (1 Co 13:1-13, a passage he ends by mentioning the three virtues together). (…) He speaks of the resurrected body as a “spiritual body” which requires the radical transformation of the earthly—psychic body (1 Co 15:35-49). According to the Bible, the body is first and foremost a person’s ability to enter into relationships. A resurrected body would then be a body freed from relational limitations, and thus a person fully capable of loving. (…) 

Everywhere, the Bible urges us to abandon the world of “objects” to be possessed (including the object of “merit”) and to enter the world of relationships… Contemporary theologians conceive hope in a very practical way, as a form of engagement with the world…As working in the world, for love’s sake, to bring about what would already correspond to what we call the “Kingdom of God.” In my words, it would be “the world according to God’s dream,” which is impossible to define, but which we know would be based on relationships. I would add that if God doesn’t exist, this would still be, in my view, the most beautiful way to live one’s humanity: to live with a moral integrity that’s more than necessary in this world under great threat (I’m thinking of climate upheaval and the erosion of biodiversity).

If there is such a thing as “eternal spiritual life,” as you point out, Luce, [see above] it could only take the form of love and relationships³.”

There’s plenty in that to reflect on and dream about.

Let me stress that while hope is centred on situations, expectation is rooted in the desire to be, which is essentially relational in several senses: relationships between living beings, but also the linking together of various elements, some very concrete, others imaginary, vectors of ideas as well as fantasies. This happens to be the fundamental meaning of “symbolic.” 

From hope to expectation, a whole symbolic universe is distilled in allegorical representations: they are not limited to the Christ figure or others, such as the moving Pietas that emerged from the 12th century onwards. 

Nor are these representations specific to Christianity: the rising flame, the bird that flies or stands watch (like the mythical crows), and even the gaze toward the heavens are archetypes or motifs shared since the dawn of humanity: to break free of our condition, to liberate ourselves from the dross of experience, to strive for a supernatural form, to immerse ourselves in luminous warmth.

Light undoubtedly represents the quintessence of the aspirations and comfort offered by belief in a metaphysical survival: whether it’s iridescent or in defined strokes, in contrast with dark zones, or in fertile vibrations, from this light-hope emanates intuition and even knowledge, even if merely suggested, like music that is both familiar and delightful.

Hands are joined in prayer, intertwined, or open toward the skies. And the postures of angels, those winged pedagogues, most often ease the passage to the realm of the dead. (To such a point that these mediators became secularized in the New Age spirituality of the 1990s. Help for the change of millennium?) Half-embodied, half-spirit, these cherubs and vestals are an expression of our desire to go beyond the visible, or at least to feel somehow connected to the sensation of the invisible.

All these signs suggest the existence of an Otherworld to which access, no doubt with effort, is possible (we’re not going to discuss this here, nor the evangelism of fear). Depending on the culture, hope has been based more on reunification with loved ones, in a kind of ongoing community, or in an autonomous community of ancestors that would fulfill its promise of bliss. Or a combination of both. These communities are never static, but rather inspire fraternity and justice.

Support. In this respect, the tree is the emblem that ties together immemorial and sometimes unspeakable hope. How? It represents stability, for itself and for us, yet it grows and evolves. It’s no doubt for this reason that human beings are drawn to walk among trees or seek them out for ceremony: trees revitalize their sense of cohesion. If trees touch us so deeply by their presence, if we care about them so much, it’s because we feel just how much they evoke Life across their intersecting vertical and horizontal planes: “The tree unites the mysterious underworld, where its roots plunge deep, with the reassuring celestial domain it reaches at its crown.”⁴ Tree of Life, indeed, whose principle has outlived dolmens and —who knows— perhaps even monuments. By accompanying the irreducible impulse of hope.

In this panorama of hope, eternity in no way means relegating the dead to the great dustbin of oblivion. In admitting that they have an intrinsic existence, or even denying it, what ultimately makes the meaning of the term is our desire for the dead to leave traces in the memory of the living. We think, of course, of the remarkable dead rendered noteworthy by the values of their time, and who inspired the great mausoleums erected to the posthumous glory of some great man (rarely to the glory of some great woman).

And yet, as our speaker was pointing out, remarkableness isn’t just a matter of fame. It can also be a matter of simplicity, sobriety and constancy in the civilizing gestures of everyday life: if these people are remembered, even if only by their descendants or close relatives, the values they lived for, once again, and particularly in troubled times, deserve to be noted and passed on. Inscribed in the architectural and civic foundations. And reflected in a renewed aesthetic, free of trendy clichés: Tree-like.

A mausoleum of hope— La Speranza—therefore becomes not only the resting place of those who are socially privileged by fame or by fortune, but also of so many others who were actively hopeful for humanity focused on the search for… humanity. Interwoven. Like the branches of a tree.

But why juxtapose “actively” and  “hopeful”? To go against the grain of this tempting inclination. As I noted at the outset, hope very often becomes a convenient depository for unresolved aspirations or distress we don’t dare dig into. We then cover the term in vagueness—even the unspoken, because it’s so intolerable—as we look in the distance: “Let’s hope so…” Certainly. And let’s allow ourselves to be drawn into the arborescence of hope.

So to associate the remains of our dead with the principle of hope in an architectural work is not to ignore the multiform realities of hopelessness, or even despair. These realities are not only lodged in the mourning of loved ones, but in the multipronged ramifications of social deprivation.

Gathering the deceased together under the sign of hope is first and foremost a symbol of how we can concretely connect the various worlds. At very least, they are known to us, particularly through the many afflictions currently affecting our planetary life. Hope can guide us when we feel overwhelmed by complexities.  

This is equally important in the contemplation that such a space will inspire, making it all the more comforting.

Carefully articulated, the challenge of building and attending a mausoleum of Hope is all the more exciting and uplifting.

Luce DES AULNIERS, anthropologist, professor emeritus  
With the collaboration of Anne-Marie CHAPLEAU, biblical scholar 

Language editing by Ghislaine DAOUST 
For Alain CHARTIER, Director General, Le repos Saint-François d’Assise 
April 2021, revised May 2023

Download the PDF version of this article (in French)

Notes

1. The Resurrection is not so much to be taken literally as to be considered by modern theologies above all as a metaphor for the transformation of beings.
2. PÉGUY, Charles (1986 [1916]). Le Porche du mystère de la deuxième vertu, Gallimard, Coll. Poésie-Gallimard (#204), 192 p., p. 78.  What we also know best: “ Sur le chemin montant, sablonneux, malaisé. Sur la route montante. Traînée, pendue aux bras de ses deux grandes sœurs, qui la tiennent par la main. La petite fille espérance. S’avance. Et au milieu de ses deux grandes sœurs elle a l’air de se laisser traîner. Comme une enfant qui n’aurait pas la force de marcher. Et qu’on traînerait sur la route malgré elle. Et en réalité c’est elle qui fait marcher les deux autres. Et qui les traîne, et qui fait marcher tout le monde. Et qui le traîne. Car on ne travaille jamais que pour les enfants. 
   Et les deux grandes ne marchent que pour la petite. ” 
   [Note: According to Péguy, these two big sisters, Faith and Charity, reflect what is, while hope carries them.] 
3. Interview with Anne-Marie CHAPLEAU, biblical scholar and professor at Institut de formation théologique et pastorale, Saguenay, April 2021. 
4. DEBRAY, Régis (2012). Jeunesse du sacré (illustrated), Paris, Gallimard, p.185, 205 p.