HOPE is a word often uttered as casually as asking someone ‘how are you?’ The interlocutor is not seeking a detailed list of how one is doing, rather it is a type of casual and somewhat sincere greeting. So, saying to someone we hope everything is going well for them is of the same ilk.
Far
from its use referencing a gift of the Holy Spirit, the word hope for many
simply means expectation of something material such as hoping for a raise at
work or fine weather to go skiing, or that our favourite team will win the
game.
The
joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age,
especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and
hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing
genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts……[1]
It is
precisely because the Church, and all Her baptized members, are endowed with
the virtue of hope at Baptism that every hope of every human being, no matter
what is actually contained in those hopes, are taken into the heart of the
Church, the hearts of all Christians.
Hope is
the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal
life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not
on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let
us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised
is faithful." "The Holy Spirit . . . poured out upon us richly
through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and
become heirs in hope of eternal life." The virtue of hope responds to the
aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it
takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to
order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it
sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation
of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and
led to the happiness that flows from charity……..Christian hope unfolds from the
beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. The
beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace
the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But
through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the
"hope that does not disappoint." Hope is the "sure and steadfast
anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner
on our behalf." Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of
salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and
for a helmet the hope of salvation." It affords us joy even under trial:
"Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation." Hope is expressed
and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of
everything that hope leads us to desire. [2]
Like
all gifts of the Holy Spirit hope is offered, not imposed. We must accept and
live rooted in all His gifts, such as the gift of hope, which can be a tough
thing to do in this seemingly unending pandemic and the stress of lives turned
upside down, not merely because of the virus but the sheer unceasing pressure
of government edicts about masks, social distancing, the outright closing of
places of worship or restricting how many people can attend and interfering
with aspects of the Liturgy such as distribution of the Precious Blood.
There
is both a graced and emotional component to hope: joy!
Here
too it is a choice. If we obsess about the latest news, from whatever source,
about the pandemic stats, the arguments about the vaccines, or focus too much
on isolation, how food and everything we need keeps increasing in price, then
the very size of our self pity swimming pool where we hold, all alone, self
pity parties, will sap away our strength to live, to hope, to keep our gaze on
Christ our hope who loves us so.
Granted
it may be these days we only see the eyes of another above the compulsory
masks, or see their actual beautiful faces via video chats, in all cases the
truth is we actually see, in every human face, the beautiful Holy Face of
Christ and His eyes burning with the fire of His love for us. Indeed: It is
only in the eyes of another, in the face of another, that we can find the icon
or image of Christ. There are many ways of praising God, many ways of praying
to Him, many ways of searching for Him. But today there is one great way, one profound
way, one gentle, tender, and compassionate way. It is by a person-to-person
love…..[3]
Spiritual
warfare is the moment by moment reality of life, and in this pandemic it is
intense and may well be felt as simply too much on top of all the impact of the
pandemic. This is what satan wants us to think so that we will bend towards
ourselves, abandon hope, faith and trust in the God who loves us, redeems us,
strengthens us, is Himself our hope, dwells with us every step of the way on
our pilgrimage to Him from whom we originate.
Yes it
is reasonable, even necessary, we pray for an end to this pandemic scourge. Our
Elder Brothers and Sisters in faith, the Jewish people, struggled on the long
journey of forty years in the desert and during the Holocaust as well. Surely
in both instances some gave into despair, some felt God had abandoned them, but
those who kept faith, continued to hope, reached the Promised Land in the first
instance, and in the latter were alive when the camps were liberated.
In the
first centuries of the Christian era our ancestors were martyred by the
thousands, as has happened across the millennia to this day, in the death camps
of WWII, the Russian Gulag, the modern concentration camps of today, and we are
also persecuted not by blood but in various nefarious means by leftist
governments and media.
This is
what is means to be faithful disciples of Christ: “If the world hates you,
realize that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would
love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you
out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No
slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also
persecute you.” [Jn. 15: 18-20]
St.
John Paul II reminded us that: “Christ, Crucified and Risen, is our only true
hope.”
No
vaccines, changes of government, economies, etc., etc., can give true hope,
only Christ. Our
loving
task, through prayer, word, gesture, is to radiate Christ to everyone so that
in the darkness of this pandemic everyone, in the Light of Christ, has true
hope.
[1]
Gaudium et Spes, # 1 ~ italics are mine
[2]
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paras: 1817, 1818, 1820 ~ italics are mine
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P66.HTM
[3]
LIVING THE GOSPEL WITHOUT COMPROMISE, Catherine Doherty; p. 17; Madonna House
Publications, 2002 edition, italics are mine.
© 2021
Fr. Arthur Joseph
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