Hope Springs from Below: The Woman Who Couldn’t Stand Up

“A Esperança brota de baixo”: a mulher que não podia se levantar

ABSTRACT

The drama of the healing of the doubled-over woman in the synagogue (Lk 13:10-17) is presented in the light of exegetical studies. She is identified as one of the ‘anāwîm, the stooped and the bowed down, the poor who totally depend on God to relieve them in their misery and in whom they put all their hope and trust. More specifically, she is representative of all women who are oppressed. Her healing is an eloquent expression of the Kingdom of God. Hope is outlined as a constant throughout salvation history. Its characteristics are examined in relation to the virtues of faith and love. The Spirit works our salvation from below and the poor are mediations of salvation to the world, which leads us to affirm that hope springs from below and overflows, as seen in the life of the woman who sprang up and intoned God’s praises.

KEY WORDS
Doubled-over woman; ‘Anāwîm ; Kingdom of God; Hope; Salvation

RESUMO

O drama da cura da mulher encurvada na sinagoga (Lc 13,10-17) é apresentado à luz de estudos exegéticos. Ela é identificada como uma das ‘anāwîm, as encurvadas e prostradas, as pobres que dependem totalmente de Deus para aliviá-las em sua miséria e em quem depositam toda a sua esperança e confiança. Mais especificamente, ela é representativa de todas as mulheres oprimidas. Sua cura é uma expressão eloquente do Reino de Deus. A esperança é delineada como uma constante ao longo da história da salvação. Suas características são examinadas em relação às virtudes da fé e do amor. O Espírito opera nossa salvação desde baixo e os pobres são mediações de salvação para o mundo, o que nos leva a afirmar que a esperança brota desde baixo e transborda, como visto na vida da mulher que se levantou e entoou louvores a Deus.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE
Mulher encurvada; ‘Anāwîm ; Reino de Deus; Esperança; Salvação

Introduction

The story of the anonymous woman narrated in Lk 13:10-17 is little known to many Catholics as it doesn’t figure in the Sunday readings of the liturgical calendar; however it does appear in the weekday readings, on the Monday of week 30 (Lectionary, n.d.).

The English translation of the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (2019) expresses the title of this story as: “Healing of a crippled woman on the Sabbath”. This title is unsatisfactory for two reasons. Firstly, the term “crippled” is quite generic and doesn’t express the specific nature of the woman’s ailment, thus rendering her reality less visible. Secondly, for Elisa Estévez the emphasis given by many exegetes to the theme of the Sabbath in this pericope displaces the woman to the sidelines, as she can seem like no more than a literary prop for the central argument about which activities are lawful on the Sabbath (Estévez, 2008, p. 313-314). The subtitle given by the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Karris, 2004, p. 178) is a much more accurate expression of the underlying dynamic of the narrative: “An illustration of the nature of God’s kingdom”.

This article aims to examine the intuitions that the very presence of the unnamed woman in the synagogue that day constituted an act of hope, that the healing she experienced gave her new purpose in life and increased her hope, and that theological hope springs from below. It does so as an excursion into narrative theology that is reflected upon in the light of contemporary explorations on the theme of hope. We will begin by looking at the woman in her socio-religious context, her encounter with Jesus in the synagogue and its theological significance, based on exegetical studies. From there we will outline the question of hope in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the final section we will consider some reflections about the action of the Spirit in working out our salvation from below and the poor as mediations of salvation to the world, that in turn permit us to appreciate the healed woman as a living example of hope that springs from below and is shared globally.

1 The woman who couldn’t stand up

In this first section we consider the concrete situation of the doubled-over woman related by Luke, which leads us to identify her as belonging to the ‘anāwîm, God’s poor.

1.1 The drama of Lk 13:10-17

In the understanding of Jesus’ contemporaries Satan exercised a good part of his dominion over the body, expressed through illness. Any sick person could be described as a child of Abraham bound up by Satan, and even the demons recognized that the definitive victory would be God’s. When Jesus healed someone, it wasn’t just an act of mercy but also a battle against the reign of Satan (Mc 1:24), a sign of the presence and happiness of the Kingdom of God which belongs to the subjects named in the Beatitudes (Sicre, 1982, p. 104-106).

The encounter with the woman who couldn’t stand up took place during Jesus’ purposeful journey to Jerusalem, the city where he would be crucified. His journey can be portrayed as a progressive victory as he sought to free people from their ailments. The spatial and temporal dimensions of this particular healing of a daughter of Abraham, the synagogue and the Sabbath, highlight the fulfilment of God’s universal saving plan (Fitzmeyr, 1987, p. 529-531). The revelation of God’s reign through Jesus’ meeting with the woman is a prelude to the two comparisons that follow about the Kingdom of God (Lk 13:18-21).

In the socio-religious context in which Jesus moved, women with illnesses were the maximum expressions of poverty and abandonment (Bernal Llorente, 2022, p. 234). The woman in Lk 13:10-17 who had a curved spine was doubled over and could not stand up straight. She could see her feet, the ground, all that was below, but not in front of her. A “spirit” or “Satan” had her bound, though not possessed (Estévez, 2008, p. 315-316), and she was powerless to free herself. She had been in that situation for eighteen years, so it would have seemed like her permanent state.

The woman’s suffering was not just physical. In her medium, chronic illnesses were generally viewed as divine punishment for inappropriate behaviour. A person who couldn’t stand upright and thus look someone in the eye was often perceived as inauthentic, untrustworthy and malevolent, even more so if of the female sex, considered naturally weak both physically and morally (Estévez, 2008, p. 317-318). The woman’s condition considerably limited her capacity to establish reciprocal relations with other people, and subjected her to the humiliation of social and religious stigma and exclusion. In a metaphorical sense she not only could not stand up, but also she could not “stand up for herself”, defend herself against the insults added to injury. Reduced to an animal level through her inability to stand up straight, her capacity to communicate with God was also compromised. With her head decidedly down, in Semitic perspective she represented fallen humanity (Bovon, 2002, p. 483-484). She was effectively a woman of very limited vision, without much horizon towards the future. She looked at others “from below” and considered them to be her superiors, not her equals. She wouldn’t have felt appreciated in her human dignity; in her social inferiority she would have been likely to suffer low self-esteem (Betancur Jiménez, 2006, p. 399-400).

Yet this woman had not given in to the clutches of despair, as her very presence in the synagogue spoke of her trust in God’s Covenant and her fidelity to her Hebrew heritage, frequenting this religious space to listen to God’s Word and join in the prayer of the psalms. She showed courage in the midst of her pain, and never lost hope in what God could do. Perhaps she had heard of Jesus of Nazareth and his capacity to cure infirmities, perhaps she hoped to encounter him and be healed. Nevertheless, this would not have been a naïve optimism or a magical expectation, as she was a woman who was steadfast in living her religious tradition with deep conviction. Those around her in the synagogue might have scarcely noticed her presence, felt helpless to do anything for her, or perhaps judged her harshly or were indifferent to her situation.

Jesus, in the midst of his teaching activity, spotted her quickly and was touched by her plight. He didn’t approach her but rather called her over to where he was. She moved from a peripheral part of the synagogue to a more central space so that all could witness the embodiment of the Good News in her through Jesus’ action (Bovon, 2002, p. 484; More Flores, 2017, p. 263). By word and by touch he freed her from her disability: he declared her liberation as a fact and “he laid his hands on her” (Lk 13:12) in a characteristic gesture of healing. Divine strength overcame that of Satan to transform the woman’s physical weakness into new life, and evoked the spiritual regeneration and ethical rectitude that God desired for his people (Bovon, 2002, p. 485-486). The narration concludes with the people present rejoicing in the wonders Jesus had done. Luke uses the same term as the LXX when it refers to the wonders God had worked freeing the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt (Ex 34:10). That is to say, his healing of the woman is presented as a liberating action (Estévez, 2008, p. 328, 332).

“And at once she straightened up, and she glorified God” (Lk 13:13). The Greek text employs the divine passive whereby she literally “was straightened up”, with God as the agent of this action. The verb Luke uses, “to straighten up”, is the same verb that he employs in Acts 15:16 to speak of the “rebuilding” of Israel which will be restored to its plenitude (Estévez, 2008, p. 324). The woman recovered her stature and was thus reconstituted in her dignity and could look forward to enjoying life more fully. Able to stand up, she could now see those in front of her and look them in the eye, with the promise of being able to build normal relationships with other people and live within a future-oriented horizon. It was a complete transformation of her circumstances and a renewal of her hope.

Open to the presence, words and action of Jesus, to the power of God’s Reign in her life (Karris, 2004, p. 178), this woman, filled with grace, responded immediately glorifying God. The person who glorifies God acknowledges what God has done for her through the Word made flesh. With praise and rejoicing the woman expressed her overflowing gratitude, feeling Jesus’ love and bearing witness to his action in her, and she may well have also acknowledged him as a unique mediator of God’s saving power that had restored and renewed her. For Luke, to glorify God was an essential element of discipleship. It wasn’t an isolated action of the woman, as the verb “to glorify” is expressed in the imperfect tense, indicating an on-going action (Estévez, 2008, p. 321-322, 325, 333, 343-344). In this context the words of Irenaeus of Lyons resonate: “The glory of God is a living human being, and the life of the human consists in beholding God”² (Irenaeus, AH, IV, 20, 7).

It is important not to see the woman in Lk 13:10-17 as merely a passive recipient of healing from a good man, but rather to recover and reclaim her courage in the midst of her suffering, her struggle to attain a full and integrated life, her efforts to escape the narrow confines of an androcentric society, and her incorporation in Jesus’ healing ministry. Women who suffered illness or were abandoned in their affliction were called to be protagonists of the new world inaugurated by Jesus in his Paschal Mystery, to assume the responsibility to be mediations of his healing love for themselves and for others (Estévez, 2008, p. 17-19, 315, 341-344; Bernal Llorente, 2022, p. 234).

“But the president of the synagogue was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath…” (Lk 13:14), and he launched a legalistic argument to criticize both Jesus and the woman. Jesus unveiled his and others’ hypocrisy in seeing nothing wrong with untying an animal on the Sabbath day so as to be brought to drink and continue to thrive, while being unable to perceive the woman as a daughter of Abraham, as Jesus named her, greatly in need of a cure for her doubled-over spinal column. To them she was worth less than an ox or a donkey, contrary to Jesus’ affirmation that human beings are worth more than other creatures (Lk 12:7), and they favoured prolonging her suffering at least until the next day because of a supposed transgression of the Law. As a daughter of Abraham, the woman was “untied” just as Isaac was when God provided an animal to Abraham to offer in sacrifice instead of his son (Gen 22:13-14). She was a recipient of God’s mercy promised to the patriarch’s descendants (Lk 1:54-55), confirmed by her openness to receive God’s blessing. She became a visible expression of God’s saving action, as a woman who could now stand up and joyfully sing her Saviour’s praises. God’s promise wasn’t in any way restricted to those who were healthy and of the male sex, and the message of the Kingdom is inclusive. “YHWH lifts up those who are bowed down. All look to you in hope” (Ps 145:14b-15a).

As a beneficiary of the divine promises the woman was capable of recognizing God’s salvation. Hierarchically superior to the majority of those present, the president of the synagogue and those who thought like him couldn’t see this, blinded by their obsession with the Sabbath in terms of meticulous prohibitions that excluded works of mercy. They were the ones effectively doubled over through this blindness and their hardness of heart, unable to perceive the healing of the woman as God’s saving work rather than a human action, unable to read the signs of the times (More Flores, 2017, p. 265-267; Betancur Jiménez, 2006, p. 397-398). In Lk 14:1-6 Jesus cured a dropsical man on the Sabbath in the house of one of the leading Pharisees, and entered into a similar discussion with this man and his guests. As with the doubled over woman, Jesus’ saving power took precedence over the Law (Estévez, 2008, p. 320). And in a discussion with the Pharisees about picking corn on the Sabbath, Jesus affirmed with authority: “The Son of man is master of the Sabbath” (Lk 6:5). He showed that the Sabbath’s main purpose was to promote and develop works of compassion and mercy, and not prohibit them (Bernal Llorente, 2022, p. 156).

Blessed by God (Gen 2:3), the Sabbath is a reminder of the liberation of Israel (Dt 5:12-15). Jesus brought it to its fullness as a festive celebration of life in which it is important to do good, to serve others in their need. Far from being a prohibited work, to heal and liberate is of the essence of the Sabbath, so it was a necessary action, both right and just. For Jesus a person’s happiness takes priority over religious norms.

Jesus left his adversaries “covered with confusion” (Lk 13:17) as his words had exposed their hypocrisy. As he said of the scribes and the Pharisees in another moment: “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they! […] You shut up the kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces […] You […] have neglected the weightier matters of the Law – justice, mercy, good faith!” (Mt 23:4.13.23). Their religious outlook and practice were oppressive, and the burdens they laid on other people’s shoulders caused them to be doubled over, metaphorically speaking, shut out from access to God. The female protagonist of this narration bore this oppression visibly in her body. Jesus fulfilled in her his promise to give rest to those overburdened by the weight of the Law’s demands and his invitation to those open to him to shoulder his yoke, which is his very life (Mt 11:28-30) (Pikaza, 2017, p. 459; Betancur Jiménez, 2006, p. 398, 401). All the other people present in the synagogue rejoiced spontaneously at the wonder he had worked, a sign of the irruption of God’s reign (Bovon, 2002, p. 490-491), in this way sharing in the woman’s expressions of praise to God.

In his eschatological discourse, Jesus invited his hearers to “Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand” (Lk 21:28). It is an invitation to look towards a horizon filled with confidence and hope which can best be seen in an upright gaze. It overcomes cowardice and goes beyond the immediacy of head-down navel gazing which nurtures self-absorption within a very short-sighted projection that ultimately disappoints (Karris, 2004, p. 191; Recondo, 2010, p. 51-52), or of an oppressive situation that clips a person’s wings and keeps them bowed down. With her head up and her face uncovered, the woman transcended her previous situation that tended to keep her closed in on herself, allowing her to meet her Healer and embrace life with new energies and prospects (Estévez, 2008, p. 327).

1.2 The woman as a representative of the ‘anāwîm

The anonymous woman of Lk 13:10-17 is a cypher for all those who are oppressed, and in a literal sense for the ‘anāwîm, those who are poor, afflicted, intimidated; exploited, despised, humiliated; downtrodden, overburdened, doubled-over (Alonso Schökel, 1999, p. 577-579; Carballo et al., 1999, p. 2081; Lalfakmawia, 2013), despite the fact that Luke didn’t apply the term directly to her. “The word, anawim ענוים, is plural for the Hebrew word, ani עני, which put very simply means to be stooped, bowed, lowered, overwhelmed, a word found saturating the entire scriptures” (Draper, 2022, p. 8, n. 5).

The ‘anāwîm were oppressed by unscrupulous despots, without any hope of receiving redress. For this reason, they turned to YHWH imploring true justice. They depended totally on divine compassion to have any kind of juridical protection: “My very bones will all exclaim, YHWH, who can compare with you in rescuing the poor from the oppressor, the needy from the exploiter?” (Ps 35:10). In was in this context that the term ‘anāw assumed a religious and moral value, signifying gentle, humble and pious, with total dependence on God (Carballo et al., 1999, p. 2081-2082). “The anawim are individuals poor in spirit, the humble of heart, the true handmaids, and servants of Jesus who place their entire life in Abba’s hands” (Draper, 2022, p. 8, n. 5).

The ‘anāwîm were thus characterized by their search for God (Ps 69:32-33), their openness to whatever God might communicate, their dependence and trust (Zeph 2:3; 3:12), and they are the subject of God’s special attention. “Poor and needy as I am, the Lord has me in mind. You, my helper, my Saviour, my God, do not delay” (Ps 40:17); God “accords his favour to the humble” (Pr 3:34). In the Beatitudes according to Luke, the Kingdom of God belongs to those who live the spirituality of the ‘anāwîm (Lc 6:20) (Mora Paz; Levoratti, 2007, p. 514).

Jesus was an exemplary ‘anāw in both a social and a religious sense, which culminated in his ignominious death on the Cross (Carballo et al., 1999, p. 2082-2083). On the Cross he felt abandoned by the Father and yet continued to trust and to hope. Draper considers that a proper understanding of the ‘anāwîm involves linking their experience inextricably to the attitude of kénōsis, as exemplified in the Magnificat and the Incarnation (Draper, 2022, p. 58-60).

[The Magnificat] is a canticle that reveals in filigree the spirituality of the biblical anawim , that is, of those faithful who not only recognize themselves as “poor” in the detachment from all idolatry of riches and power, but also in the profound humility of a heart emptied of the temptation to pride and open to the bursting in of the divine saving grace

(Benedict, 2006).

In Luke’s first mention of Jesus present in a synagogue, he read from the prophet Isaiah announcing programmatically his anointing “to bring the good news to the afflicted […] to proclaim liberty to captives […] to let the oppressed go free” (Lk 4:18), and in a later visit to a synagogue he fulfilled this text by curing the stooped woman. The narrative isn’t just about the woman and her release from that which held her captive, but also constitutes a call to the witnesses of the incident or readers of the story to receive the good news and assume its consequences; however, in both episodes there was blindness and resistance to taking on board what had happened. When the poor are restored in their dignity, Church and society are called on to reform themselves and to welcome in a new way those who are on the margins (Grieu, 2024).

The harsh realities of our world present us with on-going challenges to commit ourselves to the cause of the poor:

Each day the world seems more elitist, and each day crueller, toward those who have been cast out and abandoned. […] The condition of marginalization in which millions of people are oppressed cannot last much longer. Their cry rises and encompasses the whole earth. […] We cannot escape from the pressing call that the Word of God entrusts to the poor. […] “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Not for those like me, not for my group, but for the lowest, hungry, thirsty, naked. […] The last deceived and left abandoned to die in the desert; the last tortured, abused, raped in detention camps; the last who defy the waves of a pitiless sea

(Francis, 2025, p. 15-16).

Rosario More Flores preludes her study of Lk 13:10-17 with a list of the many and diverse situations of marginalization and subordination to which women are subject in our contemporary world. She identifies many doubled-over women of the twenty-first century, with a view to promoting these daughters of Abraham in a liberating process towards a more inclusive society. The dominant paradigm of male chauvinism, in which the often-violent subjugation of women is normalized in many societies, has frequently been justified with reference to very partial interpretations of the Bible. In Church life the androcentric perspective continues to prevail, and in certain expressions of female religious life a patriarchal mindset is still to be found. In spite of some advances in the recognition of women’s dignity and human rights along with their greater visibility in public spaces, there is still much to be done to redress the balance. While recognizing that all those who are weak and vulnerable are at risk, for the author this risk is doubled in the case of women. She speaks of women who are deprived of access to education, who are subject to physical and sexual aggressions and human trafficking, who suffer genital mutilation, racism and many other types of ill-treatment (More Flores, 2017, p. 251-259). The doubled-over woman is a cypher for these women, not just in what she suffered but also in her indomitable hope for more abundant life.

2 Understandings of hope in the Judeo-Christian tradition

In this second section we sketch the theme of hope in salvation history and its development as one of the theological virtues.

2.1 An outline of hope in salvation history

A recent study by the biblical scholar Rita Gomes outlines the parameters of hope in God’s promises. The Septuagint translated into Greek various Hebrew verbs and their derived nouns as έλπίζω (to hope) and έλπίς (hope). The verbal form appears 117 times in the Old Testament and 31 times in the New Testament, with only 4 incidences in the Gospels. The noun “hope” also appears 117 times in the Old Testament. Of its 53 occurrences in the New Testament, none are in the Gospels; its greater frequence is in the Pauline epistles (Gomes, 2024, p. 386-389).

Hope is linked to faith in God’s promises, particularly to the Covenants made with Noah, his descendants and all of creation, represented by the animals who left the ark; with Abraham and his descendants; and with Moses and the people of Israel. The people’s infidelities led to renewals of the Covenant, and from the perspective of the Exile there emerged a strong hope in a royal Messiah to restore Israel, a descendant of David. During this time in Babylon the prophet Jeremiah bore witness to the New Covenant inscribed in people’s hearts and not stone, that assured them of being God’s people and pointed to direct knowledge of God. It strengthened their hope in the coming of the Messiah (Gomes, 2024, p. 389-395).

In the New Testament the New Covenant was further developed as the object of God’s promise and not just its foundation, in which sins are forgiven. “God’s people” was no longer limited to biological descent, becoming a much wider category. The divine promise of a Messiah was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, so the Gospels didn’t need to speak of hope in that respect. But after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension Christians began to hope for his promised return in glory, which explains why the term “hope” reappeared in the New Testament epistles (Gomes, 2024, p. 394-395, 397-399).

Apart from the expectation of the arrival of the awaited Messiah or the second coming of Jesus (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20), salvation history is imbued with another dimension of hope, in terms of a longing for God’s compassion and forgiveness. An example of this perspective can be found in the book of Lamentations, where the fall of Judah and the subsequent Exile were interpreted as divine punishment for the many sins of the people. In the midst of their trials they hoped for a restoration, which they recognized could only come from YHWH. They realized that this could not happen through either a renewed strength of their armies nor through an enfeeblement of the enemy; the intervention of a strong ally was also discounted. The only hope left to them was to return to YHWH, whom they knew could reverse their current situation. The Babylonian invaders were perceived as an instrument of divine justice which Judah deserved for its infidelities, but without any prejudice to God’s power to save. The people appreciated that God did not want to destroy them and that they needed to undergo conversion. They begged God to see their pain, to hear their cries for help, and expressed their trust and hope anew due to their historic experience of God’s fidelity and mercy. “This is what I shall keep in mind and so regain some hope: surely YHWH’s mercies are not over, his deeds of faithful love not exhausted; ever morning they are renewed, great is his faithfulness! ‘YHWH is all I have’, I say to myself, and so I shall put my hope in him” (Lam 3,21-24). The concentric structure of the five poems puts the theme of hope at the centre (Mayoral, 1994, p. 283-305, 321-325).

Jesus who has come is our hope (1 Tim 1:1) as he personifies the Kingdom that he announces, and we are invited to accept him. The New Testament develops two different modes of speaking of hope: the historical and the eschatological, which reflect the “already” and “not yet” dimensions of God’s promises. Eschatological hope is expressed as “waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit 2:13). In the meantime Jesus is present among the communities in the Word, in the Eucharist, in each one of its members and particularly in the poor. In the resurrection of the dead justice will be done for the innocent sufferers who didn’t obtain redress here on Earth. Eternal life will bring about the consummation of who we are, of what we have striven for in this life, our relationships and aspirations, our desires and hopes (Martínez-Gayol, 2024, p. 504-507).

Historical hope is expressed in conjunction with the term hypomoné, “normally translated as ‘patience’ – perseverance, constancy. Knowing how to wait, while patiently enduring trials, is necessary for the believer to be able to ‘receive what is promised’ (Heb 10:36). […] the word indicates a lived hope, a life based on the certainty of hope” (SS, n. 9). In the midst of adversity, hope is made visible in overflowing joy (Rom 12:12; 1 Pet 1:6,8; 4:13). God’s love poured into our hearts by the gift of the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that the hope that is the fruit of perseverance through hardships will not deceive us (Rom 5:5). Moreover, remembering the promise made to Noah, his family and the animals in the ark, the whole of creation lives in hope of being liberated from current vulnerabilities in order to be “brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God” (Rom 8:21) (Fitzmyer, 2004, p. 396-397).

Historical and eschatological hope are expressive of the complementary yet inseparable processes of humanization and divinization. For Bernard Sesboüé, the Fathers of the Church appreciated that humanization and divinization grow side by side and together reach the same point. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that we can take part in divine life through filial adoption, revealing a dynamic of admirable interchange that does not supress our humanity but rather potentiates it (Sesboüé, 1990, p. 238).

2.2 The theological virtue of hope

Hope is intimately intertwined with faith and love. These three divine gifts have been collectively denominated the “theological virtues” since medieval times, so as to distinguish them from the Platonic virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. They are not “things” but rather ways of being, deeply rooted dispositions, dynamisms, that confer us identity and open us to a growth in the life of grace in our filial relationship with God, in our configuration with Christ and participation in his glory through the action of the Spirit. The triad of faith, hope and love is found several times in the Pauline corpus, with trust as the common factor that unites them. This trust is also a central anthropological existential, whereby Erikson’s basic trust can be understood as fundamental hope. Christ is our model for living out this triad as Church, as indeed is the Holy Trinity (Martínez-Gayol, 2013, p. 714-718, 725-735, 738-752). Faith is invigorated and sustained by hope, and both are animated by love (Galli, 2008, p. 259-260). Paul expresses his desire that the God of hope fill us with joy and peace as we trust in him, making us overflow with hope (Rom 15:13).

In his encyclical Spe salvi, Benedict XVI notes that in several biblical texts the terms “faith” and “hope” are effectively interchangeable, for example, Heb 10:22-23; 1 Pet 3:15. Christians have come to know a living, personal God, and for this reason are hopeful because they know they have a future, and this affects how they live in the present. Faith gives us an anticipation of what awaits us (SS, n. 2, 4-5, 7). Hope is thus a fundamental dimension of faith: “those who hope in YHWH” (Ps 25:3; 37:9) are believers, and YHWH is the “hope of Israel” (Jer 14:8; 17:13) (Martínez-Gayol, 2013, p. 726-727). Faith is intrinsically hopeful, as Abraham “hoped and believed that he was to become ‘father of many nations’ in fulfilment of the promise: ‘Just so will your descendants be’. […] Counting on the promise of God, he did not doubt or disbelieve […] fully convinced that whatever God promised he has the power to perform” (Rom 4:18.20-21). Faith in the resurrection of Jesus is the basis of our hope (1 Pet 1:3); by contrast, those who are not believers are without hope (1 Ts 4:13; Ef 2:12). We can only have radical hope in someone whom we trust profoundly (Martínez-Gayol, 2024, p. 509). Pope Francis expresses this idea in his autobiography: “Christian hope is invincible because it is not a desire. It is the certainty that we are all travelling, not toward something that we want to be there, but something that is already there” (Francis, 2025, p. 252).

Faith needs hope if it is to be ardent and bear fruit. Christian hope encircles the human person in his or her relationship with God, with other people and with all of creation. (Gutiérrez, 2009, p. 399, 395). Far from being an evasion of the “vale of tears” on this earth, a passive resignation while we wait for eternal life or a narcissistic self-seeking, hope is very much a social reality. Christian hope reaches out into the unknown because we trust in God’s love, and embraces all of God’s creatures in their yearning for life in abundance (Jn 10:10; Rom 8,21). For Moltmann hope expands our faith in Christ who is risen from the dead, and impels the Christian community to work for a more just and human world. The promise of God’s reign is the foundation for this mission (Moltmann, 1972, p. 24-28, 291-292).

We might be tempted to hope for things that give us security in these uncertain times, but this would be to narrow our vision to ourselves or our group, and to material criteria. “Hope in a Christian sense is always hope for others as well. It is an active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving towards the ‘perverse end’. It is an active hope also in the sense that we keep the world open to God” (SS, n. 34). The relational character of hope requires that I trust in the other person and have a generosity of spirit whereby that which I hope for myself I hope it also for and with others, that I can allow myself be sustained in the hope of others, and that I can cede my own hopes in order to assume the hopes of others who are desperate and let them take priority (Martínez-Gayol, 2024, p. 511-513).

Nurya Martínez-Gayol speaks of “the little hope” which is discreetly lit up when someone helps another person in some small way. The sum of little flames stokes up into a fire of hope. It is something small, yet powerful to reactivate hope in the current moment of history marked by so much disenchantment and despair. Hope is another anthropological existential, besides trust, given our openness, our innate tendency towards otherness and projections towards the future based on our capacity for self-determination. We are beings in process, under construction (Martínez-Gayol, 2024, p. 502-503).

Kant’s question about what we can hope for can be inverted to enquire about what God hopes from us, individually and collectively. Jesus calls us to collaborate in the mission of the Kingdom, expressing great trust in us in spite of our weaknesses, and this revitalizes our sense of purpose in life and potentiates our hope (Martínez-Gayol, 2024, p. 509-511).

3 Hope springs from below

In the last section of this article, we tease out some key ideas about the relationship between salvation and the poor according to Jon Sobrino and other authors. In this vein we return to the figure of the doubled-over woman, whose overflowing joy and gratitude on being cured transformed her into a channel of hope and ministry towards others.

3.1 The Spirit works our salvation from below

Víctor Codina elaborates a Pneumatology reading Scripture from below, that is to say from the perspective of the poor and the marginalized who are relegated as insignificant. The Spirit acts from below in order to rewrite the history of exclusion and suffering so that it becomes a history of justice, solidarity, fraternity and divine filiation. In order to illustrate this hermeneutical key to the action of the Spirit in salvation history, Codina develops the themes of the Spirit of justice, the Spirit breath of life in situations of chaos and death, and the Spirit father-mother of the poor. He considers the preferential option for the poor to be implicit in our Pneumatological faith, just as Pope Benedict XVI had asserted in the case of our Christological faith, and that the Church must be a Church of the poor (Codina, 2015, p. 41-64).

Codina affirms that in the history of salvation the Holy Spirit acts from below, from the margins, in favour of the oppressed, potentiating whatever means are available so that they can journey joyfully towards the Kingdom, passing from death to life. It is the Church’s mission to discern the signs of the times that are expressed in the outcry of the poor and the little ones, to listen in silence to the presence of the Spirit hidden in their voices. The Spirit moves us from within to bear witness to Jesus’ preference for the poor, the sick, women and outsiders (Codina, n.d.; Codina, 2023, p. 32, 9).

It is the Spirit who whispers or infuses hope in their hearts. Those who are most dispossessed are the richest in hope as they know how to hope for everything from God, irradiating a joy that is a powerful testimony to others. Carlos Galli speaks of the paradoxes lived by those who bear their sufferings in the happiness of hope: laughter amid tears, comfort in affliction, peace and joy in the midst of anguish (Galli, 2008, p. 286).

In his bull convening the Jubilee Year 2025, Pope Francis gives an indication of how we might discern the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel: “The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope” (Francis, 2024, n. 7). He goes on to specify the desire for peace and enthusiasm for life as signs of hope that need to be cultivated; then he mentions different groups of people who are in need of signs of hope that come through gestures great and small from those who tend to them in some way: prisoners, the sick, young people, migrants, the elderly, the poor.

From his long years of lived experience among the people of El Salvador, Jon Sobrino has developed a profound reflection on the theme of salvation in relation to the poor. He is critical of superficial negative appraisals of the poor in terms of their material and cultural privations, and defends the humanizing values to which they bear witness and that contribute to the salvation of the world (Sobrino, 2006, p. 29).

Sobrino describes the hope of the poor as a spirit which surges in a specific context that lives and reacts in the face of poverty. Those on the margins grasp at a deep level that Jesus became incarnate amongst the poor, that he showed he was very close to them and defended their cause to the point of being crucified, winning victory over the power of evil. This makes his promises credible. The poor generally don’t fall into victimhood or take a fatalistic view of their circumstances but rather see the possibilities of becoming more fully sons and daughters of God. Their awareness of their situation moves them into action so as to become agents of their own liberation, which in critical contexts provokes ever greater levels of repression against them. Their hope is not selfish and goes hand-in-hand with love of neighbour, giving of themselves even unto death in generous solidarity. The Church is called to side with the poor, to become a Church of the poor, a witness of hope; in so doing it will inevitably suffer persecutions (Sobrino, 1982, p. 117-127).

In the face of the challenges that the poor pose to wealthier social sectors, some authors tend towards a unilateralism that perhaps betrays a certain paternalism. Galli asks an open question about how can we sustain the difficult yet firm hope of the poor and accompany their striving for a more dignified life (Galli, 2008, p. 280). For Diego Molina, hope decisively configures our way of being in the world. New realities and challenges arise on a frequent basis, so it is important to be able to distinguish facile optimism, false hopes and true ones. False hopes depend too much on human capabilities, with the risks of arrogance and despotism; or they encapsulate attitudes of fideism that engender passivity. True hope springs from the gift of seeing the world as God sees it, and impels us to participate in actions born of solidarity towards those on the social margins, acting locally from within a global vision (Molina, 2024, p. 516, 518-519, 524-526).

Sobrino rejects any notion of “one-way traffic” between rich and poor, and insists that the poor have so much more to offer to the rich than vice versa. They are not merely passive recipients of aid from the sectors of abundance. In the Deuteronomic tradition the vast majority of the kings were corrupt, which is to say that salvation didn’t usually come “from above” Sobrino goes as far as to reproduce the expression of Javier Vitoria that “there is no salvation outside of the poor”, taking care to clarify that he is not stating that the poor automatically bring salvation, but rather that without them there is no salvation. Our salvation or condemnation depends on our attitude to the poor: “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). The salvation of which Sobrino speaks makes us more human. For Ignacio Ellacuría, the poor are the great reserve of hope and of human spirituality. The creativity of the poor in their struggles to survive, their active concern for each other, their cultural expressions, their joy, patience, resistance and hope, generate a civilization of solidarity. This engenders hope that a more human world is possible and gives rise to elements of salvation that don’t easily emerge from other quarters. The poor, the weak and the victims become symbolic bearers of salvation (Sobrino, 2007, p. 75, 77, 100-101, 105; Sobrino, 2006, p. 29-31).

Sobrino understands salvation in terms of human life lived with dignity that cultivates fraternal relations and openness to God, which is the embodiment of God’s kingdom. Ellacuría affirms that the civilization of wealth doesn’t civilize, doesn’t save. Nevertheless, prophetic figures can emerge “from below” or “from above”. Prophets who come from the better off part of society need to “descend” in order to receive salvation from the poor, who in turn are potentiated in their saving role. This descent implies a genuine sharing in the reality of poverty and working in favour of the poor, suffering with them, running risks to defend them, and sharing in their joys and hopes (Sobrino, 2006, p. 31-33). Rafael Belda cites one of the conclusions from the IV Congress for Peace and Civilization that took place in Florence in 1955, that affirms that hope is the hope of the poor, and that we often lack hope because we don’t take part in the sufferings of the poor (Belda, 1982, p. 80).

The poor have their own models, often exemplary, of organization in themes like the economy, healthcare, housing, human rights, education, religion, politics, art, sports and care for the Earth. For Ellacuría, the experience of the Basic Christian Communities is a sign of the saving and liberating potential that the poor have to offer. In the midst of these appreciations, Sobrino tries to avoid idealizing the poor and he recognizes that they are not immune to egoism or violence (Sobrino, 2007, p. 76-77, 80, 90).

The rich prefer not to see the poor, whose existence is evidence of great injustices. The civilization of wealth is self-sufficient and thus unable to understand or receive hope. The root of hope is in a love that bears all things, a quality to be found more naturally among the poor, who learn to hope against all hope. Their hope can pass through crises and seem weak at times, but their patience and their determination to live show that hope ultimately triumphs over disenchantment and darkness. Bearing the evil that does them so much harm, they redeem it, that is to say, they disarm evil “paying a price” with their suffering. Innocent victims move others to conversion, to having hope, to practising solidarity, and this is salvation (Sobrino, 2006, p. 34-38; Sobrino, 2007, p. 88-89, 92-93).

Sobrino affirms that the contribution of the poor and the victims is indispensable for the healing of our gravely ill civilization. He intimates that even Jesus let himself be evangelized by the poor: “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do” (Mt 11:25-26). The poor in spirit, or with spirit, are those who live their circumstances gratuitously, with hope and compassion, with fortitude when persecuted, with love and trust and readiness to fulfil what the Father might ask (Sobrino, 2007, p. 61, 80-81, 86).

Jesus invites us to live the unlimited hope that children exemplify: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3) (Galli, 2008, p. 281). Children didn’t count for much in Palestine at that time. They were noted for their dependence which generated humility, as well as for their capacity to receive a gift with simplicity and gratitude. To become like little children was to identify with those who were not taken into account, without pretensions or resentment. In this way the necessary attitudes in order to be able to welcome the gift of the Kingdom were illustrated (Levoratti, 2007, p. 362).

3.2 The woman who stood up: hope sprung from below and offered to the world

The woman in the synagogue “was straightened up” by God’s action in Jesus. She stood up, or we could imagine that she sprang up once she realized that the rigidity of her spinal curvature had been loosened, and burst into praising God. The hope within her sprang up from the depths of her heart where it had grown like a carefully-nurtured seed over the course of her lifetime. Hers was the hope of the ‘anāwîm who trusted totally in God without any pretensions or manipulations. In her the prophet’s word found fulfilment: “Those who hope in YHWH will regain their strength, they will sprout wings like eagles, though they run they will not grow weary, though they walk they will never tire” (Is 40:31). Praising God in the synagogue was but the beginning of a mission to joyfully spread the Good News, to be a pilgrim of hope (Francis, 2024, n. 1).

Simply proclaim the Lord Jesus holy in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. But give it with courtesy and respect and with a clear conscience, so that those who slander your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their accusations

(1 Pet 3,15-16).

The woman was implicated in the criticism of her healing by the leader of the synagogue, but this did not stop her from proclaiming the wonders God had done for her. Those in the scene who remained “covered with confusion” by the healing they had witnessed on the Sabbath and by the woman’s testimony were invited to a recognition of how they had been blinded to the real purpose of the Law and had succumbed to pride and the lure of power by controlling other people’s lives. A recognition that would permit them to be led to repentance and to a hope-filled memory of God’s compassion, as expressed in the book of Lamentations in the context of the Exile.

It is interesting to note the temporal characteristics of the Gospel scene. The woman had been doubled-over for eighteen years, a considerable period of time given average lifespans at that time. Her story is of great resilience and patience. Her healing on the Sabbath was considered extemporary by the president of the synagogue and his followers, revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of the “seventh day” blessed by God, a time for contemplating all that had been created and desiring it to reach its fullness. Hope is nurtured over time, through the processes of the unfolding of revelation and salvation history.

In his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis enunciates the principle that time is greater than space:

Broadly speaking, “time” has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself

(EG, n. 222).

Francis speaks of the importance of giving due time to our work from leadership positions of initiating processes in societal development and in the evangelizing mission, at a rhythm that permits us to acquire the tools to deal with adverse situations and adapt our plans when appropriate. The synagogue leaders in the Gospel story are examples of those concerned rather with “possessing spaces” (EG, n. 223).

One of the salient difficulties for hope in our times is what is denominated “presentism” or the “eternal present”, which refers to the accelerated rhythm of life that demands satisfactions instantaneously, with the consequent loss of interest through satiation and the incapacity to find meaning in the present moment. It is a serious pastoral challenge. Rojas-Contreras suggests that the identification of a variety of modulations of duration apart from the strictly chronological could be a way of recovering openness to the future and a renewed interpretation of the symbols of Christian hope (Rojas-Contreras, 2025, p. 12-18).

The following text is a likely reflection of what flowed from the woman’s heart: “Let us keep firm in the hope we possess, because the one who made the promise is trustworthy. Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works” (Heb 10:23-24). Her hope speaks of welcome, trust, prayer, faithfulness, stamina, magnanimity and creative effort (González de Cardedal, 2005, p. 18), offered generously to those around her.

Conclusion

Reaching the end of the itinerary of this article, we conclude that the narration of the healing of the doubled-over woman on the Sabbath stands as a clear portrait of the nature of God’s kingdom with respect to its proclamation of liberation to captives and its determined fight against the reign of Satan. The woman may have felt shame or fear when Jesus called her to come to him in the synagogue, or her heart may have leapt in daring anticipation of a mysterious fulfilment of her hopes for a transformation of her situation. The assurance of Jesus’ word and the tenderness of his touch would have calmed her. The cure was instant, as was the woman’s reaction glorifying God. This is the kernel of the story; the discussion around the Sabbath is a secondary foil which shows up those who were the real doubled-over ones, metaphorically speaking, due to their narrowness of vision and their clutching on to power. The passing of the woman from an irremediably stooped state to someone who could stand upright and hold her head high is both a Paschal and a Pentecostal event, as not only was she freed from her terrible illness, she became a healer for others as a mediation of hope.

Given that the generalized androcentric world view continues to produce situations that are much more oppressive for women than for men, this story is very Good News for women. It shows Jesus’ empathy towards them and his desire to free them from unjust shackles and empower them to live out their full potential. He doesn’t want them to fall into the trap of emulating the power struggles that they see around them, but encourages their creative engagement, leadership and steadfast hope so that others may have life in abundance.

The Spirit is compared with the wind which “blows where it pleases” (Jn 3:8), and it pleases the Holy Trinity that this wind blows in the hearts of the little ones (Mt 11:25-27), mainly on the social and existential margins. The ‘anāwîm of today continue to hope in God’s promises in the midst of their struggles, such as the words transmitted by the prophet Jeremiah to the people in exile in Babylon: “Yes, I know what plans I have in mind for you, YHWH declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11). For this reason they continue to fight for more human living conditions and to live profound human values such as caring for each other and bearing each other’s burdens, bearing also the sufferings inflicted on them even to the point of martyrdom, bringing salvation to the world.

Hope in the New Covenant springs from below, from the deepest place in our hearts where we allow the Spirit to enter, where the Law of God is written (Jer 31:33); hope springs from below in the ‘anāwîm and in those who let themselves learn from them (Mt 11:28-30), who take part in their sufferings. The woman who had been bent double continues to inspire Christians with a hope that disturbs, that shakes us out of our complacency, apathy and indifference, that generates protest and resistance, that endures through patience and resilience, that gives glory to God.

Abreviations
• SS  Encyclical on Christian hope Spe Salvi
• EG  Apostolic Exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world Evangelii Gaudium

• 1
  Refrain of the hymn Whispering hope written by S. WINNER in 1868.
• 2
  “Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei”.

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Edited by

• Editors:
  Márcia Eloi Rodrigues and Franklin Alves Pereira

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  22 Sept 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  17 Mar 2025
• Accepted
  23 June 2025