Hope

  In the past catechesis, we considered faith. Faith is a virtue through which we believe that God is. Hope is a virtue in which we trust God to fulfill His promises. “I am a man of hope,” writes Cardinal Suenens, “not for human reasons, nor for natural optimism, but because I believed that the Lord was acting in my life, in the Church and in the world, although his name remains unnoticed.”

                Hope leads us to believe that the God we believe in will always love us, take care of us, and keep his promise. Not to provide us with well-being, comfort, perfection, fulfillment, but love, care, mercy, and life.

Often people ask us to pray. In fact, they say, “I need hope, I don’t know if I can do it!” But I can’t give what I don’t have. Hope cannot be obtained, she must be given us. We get it poured at baptism, it is strengthened by other sacraments, it is developed and protected by an intense inner life, stemming from living faith, enhanced by daily endurance in trials. Supernatural hope can be enhanced by natural inclinations such as good humor, optimistic nature, a joyful worldview and the like.

We know well that even though a hurricane causes enormous destruction, there is an island, a calm and calm in the “hurricane eye”. The same is true in spiritual life. The intense connection to the Lord means that, despite the huge turbulence in life, tragedies and struggles on the surface, we can have peace inside. Reliable spiritual life creates the “eye of the hurricane” – the child’s confidence that everything is in the hands of God’s providence that everything is possible to God, and although there are many who do not care for God’s will, the growth of the Kingdom of God cannot be stopped.

Such hope gave the power of st. John XXIII. Every night he knelt before the Blessed Sacrament and went through all the problems he had encountered on that day – butchered priests, raped sisters, suffering behind the iron curtain, financial problems, refugees … not responded appropriately. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “I have done what I could … It is your Church, Lord. I am going to sleep. Good night.”

I, too, vividly remember one situation where many problems were kicked in the parish and I felt completely lost under the pressure of a number of unsolvable situations. I came to church at that time, and I angrily told God why he did nothing. Why is he leaving me alone, because it’s his parish, not mine! After this “my prayer” things suddenly moved. Then I realized that I needed to hear the words. I needed to realize that the parish belongs to the Lord, and he would move things when I let him do it.

It is not such a problem to have that human hope in our profession. There, sooner or later, some result will be shown and a sense of well done work will appear. We will manage the project, the construction will be completed, the patient will recover, approve our proposal. But in the field of education, growth in faith, the pursuit of a harmonious relationship, the success is often invisible or changeable. One day it seems like we have finally moved somewhere, but there is something going on next, and we see that we are back to where we were before. That breaks our knees, it deprives us of the inner strength to fight.

Again, I offer some practical tips on how to create space for receiving a gift of hope:

Let us learn our hope not to build on immediately tangible success. Yes, we are pleased to see the results of our work, but God teaches us to be free from the outcome of our actions. Saint Ignatius encourages us not to be pleased with anything but the knowledge that we have fulfilled God’s will. I did what I should do. That is enough. The rest is up to him.
Need for recognition. It is a beautiful gift when we can encourage each other by acknowledging another, showing gratitude, praise. But beware of the addiction to this gift. It is a crutch that we are given to intensify. But over time, the Lord will take away this crutch because he wants to teach us to walk alone, without it.
There are many good things in which we put our hope. To friends, marriage, children, bishop, the Church, our reputation, well done work … But we know that there may be times when even these legitimate hopes can disappoint us. And if we put all our hope into them, then it will be a great tragedy. Jesus alone is the same yesterday, today.
Hope stems from one of the most important virtues – perseverance. To be faithful, always to be faithful – to prayer, to our vocation, to the road we have set out on. When one says yes to God, it is forever. The Church prays at the ordination: “God, who has begun a good work in you, let him finish it himself.” He often does not look at whether we make the right choice, but whether we are faithful to the decision. Everything else is able to change Him.
Hope is strange