This article was first printed in the July/August 2019 issue of Intercom

Practical Consequences Of Hope In Our Lives

In his book, Near Occasions of Grace (Orbis Books, 1993, p. 100), Richard Rohr says that until we walk with despair and still have hope, we will not know that our hope was not just hope in ourselves, in our own successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection should be. We need hope from a much deeper Source. This raises the question for all of us: ‘How has hope come to you? How do you understand hope?’

We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul (Heb 6:19)
Pope Francis, in a homily in Casa Santa Marta (October 2013), asked the people attending Mass: ‘Where is your heart anchored? He added that hope is a risk, that it is a risky virtue. He went on to say that hope is not optimism; optimism can be very unrealistic. A person who has had too much to drink after a night out with friends can hope that he will drive home safely — which is optimistic, to say the least. Natural hope is not virtue, because we can hope for something that is nota good and itis still hope. According to Pope Francis, the God-given gift of hope relates the human person to their final end. This is what we call the virtue of hope.

Hope arises when we are not sure
It opens us up to God and teaches us to wait patiently and expectantly for God to come to us. It teaches us to be receptive and to rely on God. Like a child in its mother’s arms, so our hope in God makes us trustful, peaceful and at home in ourselves.

Hope keeps us youthful
When life grows short, then natural hope can grow weary. The ‘not yet’ turns into the ‘has been,’ and old age turns not to the ‘not yet’ but to memories of ‘what is no more’! Natural hope blossoms with youth and withers when youth is gone, but for supernatural hope, the opposite is true: not only is it not bound to natural youth — it is rooted in a much more substantial youthfulness. Supernatural hope gives the human person such a long future that the past seems short no matter how long or how rich the person’s past life may have been.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘as we age, beauty steals inward’; and St. Paul tells us that ‘even though out outer nature is decaying, yet our inner nature is being renewed day by day.’ (2 Cor 4:16).

Hope renews everything
To quote Pope Francis again: ‘Hope is a constant miracle reflecting what Jesus Christ is doing in his Church. He is constantly making things new in the Church, in your life, in my fife, in the whole of creation. What gives us peace in dark and difficult times is hope.’ (Homily, Casa Santa Marta, October 2013).

Hope gives meaning to our lives
Natural hope is a tool that helps us navigate the shifts of life’s surprises. It calls forth courage, imagination and the resilience we need to keep on going. It is only the virtue of hope, however, that can sustain the belief that my own life in particular and history in general, despite all the failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, which gives them their meaning and importance; only this kind of hope can give us the courage to act and to persevere in our efforts to keep on going, especially when life is weighing us down.

Hope is essential for action but even more so for life itself, for being
Those who live in hope are dynamic and active, but their attitude to life is equally life- giving and focussed on building up, if not with bricks and mortar, then certainly with love and encouragement.

Hope enables us to receive from God
A key characteristic of true hope is gratitude. Only a hope rooted in appreciation of the unmerited goodness of things and in the trust that this inspires, can make possible the freedom essential for appreciation and gratitude. Does gratitude feature in our lives — gratitude to God and to one another? This appreciative attitude is a long way from the distortion of a sense of entitlement.

Hope creates a need in us to improve social conditions in the world around us
In order to be realistic, the improvement of social conditions must include personal conversion. Hope will keep our feet on the ground, allowing us to accept reality and to face our limits. This hope- filled attitude allows for non-culpable error (when something happens and it is nobody’s fault); it can also help us to avoid a rabid search for a scapegoat, for someone to blame. Foregoing the search for scapegoats is countercultural, in the context of prevailing social attitudes today.

Hope helps us to be real disciples
This means facing the questions, giving voice to the doubts, facing the problems of life full-on. When we have hope, we are enabled to look reality in the face and at the same time communicate joyful hope. As St Paul says: ‘If you have hope, this will make you cheerful’ (Rm 12:12). Joyful hope is the seedbed of resilience; it helps us to bounce back after great difficulties. Hope is realistic and the realism of hope is based on humility. Humility is down-to-earth and is based on humour and plain humanness. The truly human is marked by the humour of humble realism. That humour is the most winning aspect of Hope.

Hope engenders joy, good humour and a grateful, playful spirit
It renders the person more essentially human. Humour comes from a free and trusting spirit, sure in its confidence in God’s sustaining love and in the goodness of God’s creation.

Hope is sustained by prayer
‘Prayer is a plant the seed of which is sown in the heart of every Christian but its growth depends on the care we take to nourish it. If neglected it will die; if nourished by constant practice it will blossom and produce fruit in abundance.’ (Mother Catherine McAuley). In our own lives, we know that when no one else listens to us, God does. When we can talk to no-one we can talk to God. St Augustine, in his homily on the first letter of St John, speaks of the intimate connection between prayer and hope. Hope is based on desire; prayer is an act of desire. Hearts that are too small to encompass God need stretching. When at times it seems that God is not answering our prayer, it is by delaying his gift in response to our prayer that God stretches our desire. This expands the soul with hope, and increases in us the Capacity for God himself.

Conclusion
Simply reverence the Lord Jesus in your hearts and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that is in you.’ (1 Pt. 3:15). As Pope Francis says, ‘hope is silent, humble and strong.’ Since it is of God, hope never fails us — because God never fails us.

Brenda Dolphin rsm
Postulator for the Cause of Venerable Catherine McAuley