Hope is a supernatural virtue by which we confidently expect, in virtue of God's promise, the endless happiness of Heaven and the means necessary for its attainment.
The first and foremost object of our hope, the object by excellence, is the possession of God in heaven.
The hope of eternal happiness is inseparably united with love.
According to St. Thomas, friendship is nothing else but a mutual attraction; it follows that friends must do as much good to one another as in their power.
Our Lord called His disciples His friends because He communicated His mysteries to them (Jn 15:15).
"Friendship," says the Angelic Doctor, "requires that a friend be in possession of his friend."
"My beloved is mine and I am his." (Canticles 2:16)
In Heaven, the soul gives itself entirely to God and God gives Himself entirely to the soul, as far as its capacity and merits will allow.
Love strives after union with the object loved.
Since this union cannot be effected between those that are separated, the lover continually yearns for the presence of his beloved.
A soul that tenderly loves Jesus Christ cannot live here below without the most ardent longing to be united with Him in Heaven, where He will be her reward.
As long, therefore, as our soul is not perfectly united with God in Heaven, it will never enjoy true peace. Those who love Our Lord sincerely find peace of heart, it is true, in conformity to the will of God; but perfect peace and perfect rest they shall never have here below.
It was for this reason that the saints yearned for their heavenly home, consumed as they were with ardent love for God.
St. Paul desired nothing more ardently than to leave this world and to be with Christ: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." (Phil 1:23)
"The good that I hope for," says St. Francis of Assisi, "is so great that every suffering becomes for me a pleasure."
St. Thomas teaches that the highest degree of love that a soul on earth can attain is an ardent desire for Heaven, to be there united to God and to possess Him forever.
St. Bellarmine thinks that in Purgatory there is a place where souls endure no pains of sense, but are tortured solely by the loss of the presence of God.
St. Gregory, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Bridget and St. Bede [agree].
There are souls that strive after perfection, but without any special desire to leave this earth and to be united to God.
There are three things necessary for the attainment of eternal life:
1.) the pardon of our sins
2.) the victory over temptations
3.) a holy death
THE PARDON OF OUR SINS
"Thou hast sinned, O Christian," says St. John Chrysostom, "but dost thou desire forgiveness? Fear not, for God's desire to grant it is greater than your desire to receive it,"
If God sees an unfortunate wretch in sin, He waits for a favorable opportunity to show him mercy.
At times He reveals to him the punishment he has deserved. (Ps 59:6)
At times He knocks on the door of the sinner's heart, hoping that He may open it. (Apoc 3:20)
Sometimes He goes after the sinner and calls to him like a compassionate father. (Ezech 18:31)
Dionysius says that God even begs us not to hurl ourselves into perdition. (2 Cor 5:20)
If, in spite of all of this, there are hard and obstinate hearts that refuse to yield, what more is there that the Lord can do for them?
To every sinner who desires to repent, He promises pardon.
"Come and accuse me: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool." (Is 1:18)
"I say to you that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance." (Lk 15:7)
It is doubtless true that we shall have a strict account to render of all the sins we have committed, but who will be our judge?
We shall be judged by a loving Redeemer who, to save us from eternal death, delivered Himself to death, and not content with that, now acts as our advocate with the Father in Heaven.
How could He reject the repentant sinner, since He came down from Heaven to seek the sinner?
In the revelations of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, we read: "Through the revenge I took on my body of My Son, My justice has been changed into clemency. His blood cries not for vengeance, as did the blood of Abel; it asks for mercy, and My justice cannot resist its pleading. The blood of Jesus binds the hands of Justice so that they cannot be raised, as once they were, to punish."
According to the words of St. Teresa, everyone who is ready to die rather than offend God anew can say that he truly hates his sins.
Upon the pronunciation of her sentence to death, St. Afra raised her eyes to Heaven and uttered the following prayer: "My Lord Jesus Christ, Thou who has come to call not the just but sinners to repentance and hast given the sinner the assurance of pardon when he returns repentant to Thee, receive me, a poor sinner; I gladly submit to this torture for lov eof Thee; grant that this fire which consumes by body, may preserve my soul from Hell."
VICTORY OVER TEMPTATION
We must confidently hope for the victory over our temptations.
When we build on the foundation of our own strength, our edifice is sure to fall.
It is necessary to place our hope in the merits of Jesus Christ.
There may be times when temptations are so violent that sin seems unavoidable. We must be on our guard at such times not to lose courage and give up the struggle. Our only resource is to hasten to Jesus Crucified. He and He alone can sustain us. The Lord permits that from time to time even the saints have such storms to endure. (2 Cor 1:8)
We are bowed down by sorrow and harassed by passion, but yet we do not despair...because the Lord by His grace gives us strength to resist our enemies.
At the same time the Apostle bids us not to forget that we are weak and frail creatures who may easily lose the treasure of divine grace, and we can preserve it only by the power of God: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us." (2 Cor 4:7)
*IMPORTANT:There are certain faults that we consider of no account, and yet they may be the reason why God withdraws His supernatural light, and thus the power of the devil is increased. Such faults are:
- the desire to be regarded as learned and distinguished from the world
- vanity in dress
- the seeking of superfluous comforts and luxuries
- the habit of showing oneself offended by every unkind word or want of attention
- the inordinate desire to please others
- the omission of exercises of piety from human respect
- disobedience in little things
- little lies and jokes at the expense of charity
- loss of time through idle conversations or a greediness for news
In a word, every attachment for earthly things, and every gratification of self-love may give the enemy an opportunity of accomplishing our destruction.
Faults of this kind committed with deliberation deprive us of that assistance of Our Lord which would protect us from falling into sin.
A HAPPY DEATH
The hour of death is for us the time of greatest anxiety. Jesus Christ alone can give us the strength to suffer, with patience and profit, the trials of this last decisive moment. At the approach of death we hvae more than ever to fear from the assaults of Hell. The nearer we approach our goal, the more will Hell strive to prevent our reaching it.
Should the devil therefore assail us in life or at death, bringing before us the sins of our youth, we must say to him with St. Bernard: "What I need to enter Heaven, I appropriate from the merits of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to procure for me that glory of which I was unworthy."
MOTIVES FOR OUR HOPE
1.) Promises made by God
"Every one that asketh receiveth." (Mt 7:8)
"In thee, O Lord, have I hoped; I shall not be confounded forever." (Ps 70:1)
"Amen, amen, I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it to you." (Jn 16:23)
(See also Ps 17:31, Ecclus 2:11, Ps 24:3, Ps 90:14-15, Heb 10:23, Mk 11:24)
2.) The sincere desire of Our Lord to make us happy. God loves all His creatures.
If, therefore, God loves all men, He must also desire that all men attain eternal happiness, for this is the highest and only good of man since it is the end for which man was created.
Calvin was guilty of horrible blasphemy when he said that God had created some men only to cast them into Hell. He even dared to assert that God forces men to sin in order that they may be damned. "God will have all me to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim 2:4)
"As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (Ezech 33:11)
Why does God so ardently desire the salvation of all men? Simply because He has created them from love and He has loved them from all eternity.
"Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee." (Jer 31:3)
"The Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish but that all should return to penance." (2 Peter 3:9)
Never give expression to such sentiments as: Who knows, perhaps God does not wish me to be saved! Perhaps on account of my offenses He desires me to be lost forever! Such thoughts you must banish from your mind, as it must now be evident to you that God assists you with His grace and urgently invites you to His love.
3.) The merits of Jesus Christ
Long before our Savior had appeared on earth, the royal Psalmist David placed all his hope in Him. (Ps 30:6)
How much more, therefore, ought we to place our confidence in Jesus now that He has come and accomplished the work of our redemption.
If on account of our sins we have good reason to fear eternal death, we have still stronger motives for hope of eternal life in the merits of Jesus Christ.
By our sins, we have deserved eternal death, but our Redeemer has come to our assistance and taken upon Himself our debts in order to make satisfaction for them by His sufferings. (Is 53:4)
"Let us therefore go with confidence to the throne of grace; that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid." (Heb 4:16)
The throne of grace is the Cross on which Our Lord was exalted in order to dispense mercy and grace to all who have recourse to Him.
Let us hasten, therefore, to the Cross of Christ and embrace it with unwavering confidence.
The merits of Christ have opened to us the treasury of God by acquiring for us a right to all the graces that we can possibly desire.
CHRIST'S INTERCESSION
Between the Eternal Father and ourselves there is a Mediator, Jesus Christ, to whom we are united by bonds of love so strong that nothing can ever break them unless we ourselves break them by mortal sin.
Jesus is loved by His heavenly Father; therefore, we are loved with Him.
God loves His Divine Son more than He hates the sinner.
THE INTERCESSION OF THE BLESSED MOTHER
A fourth motive for unbounded confidence is the powerful intercession of Mary our Mother.
Mary is the Mediatrix of all grace.
"Through thee who has found grace, may we have access to the Son, O Mother of our Salvation, in order that through thee He may receive us who through thee was given to us."
All goods and graces that we receive from God come to us through the intercession of Mary.
And why is this?
"Because God has wished it so." (St. Bernard)
St. Augustine gives further reason: "Mary can rightly be called our Mother because by her love she contributed towards giving us the life of grace and making us members of the Mystical Body of Christ."
On this account the Church desires us to invoke her as "our life, our sweetness and our hope." Accordingly, St. Bernard exhorts us to have constant recourse to this divine Mother because her petitions are certainly answered: "Hasten to Mary, for I say it without hesitation, the Son will certainly hear the Mother. She is the ladder of safety for poor sinners. She is my greatest assurance; she is the only ground of my hope."
You can reach God only through Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ only through Mary.
St. Bonaventure says, "I rejoice and am glad, for my sentence on judgment day depends on Jesus my Brother, and on Mary my Mother."
QUALITIES OF HOPE
1.) Our hope must be firm and unwavering
The Council of Trent agrees, "We must all confidently hope for the assistance of God; for as GOd has begun the good work in us, He wills to complete it, provided we make use of His grace; both the desire and its realization are from Him."
With human hope there is always connected the fear that the person who has made a promise has changed or will change his mind. Christian hope, on the contrary, which looks to eternal salvation, has no doubt or fear whatever regarding God.
It is nevertheless true that even Christian hope is not altogether free from a certain fear; but as St. Thomas says, "We have nothing to fear on the part of God, but only from ourselves."
The Council of Trent was right, therefore, in condemning the innovators for saying that man has no freedom of will, and that each one must have an infallible certainty with regard to his perseverance in grace and eternal happiness.
Our cooperation is necessary for the attainment of eternal happiness.
We should therefore trust with unwavering confidence in His goodness.
It sometimes happens that, owing to spiritual aridity or the diquiet resulting from a fault we have committed, we feel an absence of that sensible confidence in prayer which we would gladly experience.
We must not on that account cease to pray, because God will very likely hear us sooner then than at other times, since we are apt to pray with greater distrust in ourselves and more hope in the goodness and fidelity of God.
2.) Our hope must be founded on God alone
The Lord forbids us to place our trust in creatures.
St. Vincent de Paul advises us not to count much on the protection of men, for if we do the Lord will withdraw from us.
Someone may say: If God alone is our hope, how can the Church address Mary as "Our hope?"
St. Thomas says, "We can place our hope in anyone in a twofold manner: we can regard one as the principal and ultimate cause for our hope, or as the secondary and mediate cause."
For example, one may hope for a favor from the king through his minister.
Now as the King of Heaven is Infinite Goodness itself, he desires to enrich us with His graces; but as the great confidence on our part is necessary to obtain them, He has, in order to increase our confidence, given us His own Mother as our Mother and mediatrix to assist us.
We are right therefore in calling the Blessed Virgin our hope, for by means of her intercession we hope to obtain what we never could obtain by our feeble prayers.
By invoking Mary with confidence, we manifest no distrust in the mercy of God, but simply fear on account of our own unworthiness.
3.) Our hope must be active; it must labor
Unless we labor, we should belong to those idle souls who tempt the Lord.
We must act as if the obtaining of our salvation depended entirely on ourselves, and yet we must place all our confidence in God and be thoroughly convinced that of ourselves we are utterly unable to attain what we desire.
God accomplishes everything by means of His grace, but He nevertheless desires our cooperation.
What have we to do? Above all things, we must pray.
St. John Chrysostom writes, "He who says 'I will not stop praying until I am eternally happy" will certainly be eternally happy."
The devil is never tired of laying snares for our destruction. "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour." (1 Pet 5:8)
How shall we win so important and difficult a victory? Only by prayer, says St. Augustine, and persevering in prayer.
By means of the assistance we receive through prayer we must endeavor to keep the Commandments of God and do violence to ourselves so as not to yield to the temptations of Hell. (Mt 11:12)
We do violence to ourselves by conquering ourselves and mortifying our senses.
And when we have been guilty of a fault, says St. Ambrose, let us do violence to the Lord by prayers and tears in order to obtain His forgiveness.
"We must rule over ourselves by subduing our evil passions in order to win Heaven which Jesus Christ has merited for us."
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