Hope urgently needed today

INDEED! Given the way things and many people are today,

hope has become an urgent need. There are just too many signs that

many people today, especially the young ones, are trapped and

entangled in worldly things. They have forgotten or do not even know

that all of us are meant for another world, another life, one that is

eternal and is our real home with God our Creator and Father.

            Because of that entanglement, many are simply chasing

illusions, if not delusions. If they get some degree of success, they

are happy, of course. But it is of the type that certainly will not

last long, and one that would not know how to cope with difficulties

and trials, let alone, failures and disasters which are always

possible in this life.

            And when they are not successful, they unavoidably fall

into sadness and depression, their verve for life all but lost. Their

world would become gloomy and they would feel as if it already is the

end of the world. Pessimism and despair then become a logical result.

            We need to more consciously develop this virtue especially

these days when we can get easily mesmerized of the many developments

that would pin us on the here and now and forget about the future and

the life hereafter.

            As defined in the Compendium of the Catechism of the

Catholic Church, hope “is the theological virtue by which we desire

and await from God eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in

Christ’s promises and relying on the help of the grace of the Holy

Spirit to merit it and to persevere to the end of our earthly life.”

(387)

            That it is, first of all, a theological virtue can only

mean that the first thing we have to do is to ask for it, often

kneeling and begging God our Father not only to grant it to us, which

he actually does unstintingly, but also to increase it all the time.

            When we truly have hope we will trust God always and

believe in his promises, regardless of what happens. We know that God

will always be true to his promises and that he has done everything so

that his will and designs for us, that is, our salvation, our eternal

life with him in heaven, can really take place. That is, if we have

hope.

            As St. Paul said, “Hope does not disappoint, because the

charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who

has been given to us.” (Rom 5,5) It is the Holy Spirit who is already

given to us that assures us beyond doubt that we are going to receive,

if we continue to hope, what Christ has promised us. We may not yet

receive these promises now, but we are already assured of them by the

Holy Spirit no less.

            It’s good that we immerse ourselves in this truth so that

we can be ready when all sorts of earthly trials assail us. With

strong faith, we can even exploit these trials to let our hope grow

even more.

            To develop this virtue of hope we need to relate

everything to God. We have to give spiritual or religious meaning to

all our acts, including the most menial acts we do. That way, we will

always be with God, always feeling reassured especially in our trying

moments, and not giving an opening to the enemies of God and of our

soul to bother us.

            Let’s try our best to be men and women of hope, of real,

great and abiding hope, which means that we have a clear vision of our

ultimate goal in life and are confident that with God’s grace and our

effort we can reach it. Let’s beam with hope and not just keep it

inside, if only to give our present troubled world some real glow.