Hope
By Ruth Pakaluk
Hope is a particularly fitting subject for the season of Advent, since hope is the characteristic attitude of this season: reliving the hope of God’s chosen people yearning for their Messiah, as well as anticipating that definitive coming, when Christ’s kingdom will be fully established, and every longing on earth and in heaven will be answered.
You recall—from my talk last spring on Fortitude, I trust—the difference between human virtues and theological virtues: human virtues are those firm dispositions to do the good which are acquired by human effort; theological virtues must be infused into the soul by God, and they are what dispose a person to be in relationship to God. The theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity.
The Catechism defines hope in this way: “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.”
We are accustomed to thinking of the importance of hope in adversity, and it is, of course, important. It is what helps get us through tough times. Viewed merely from a natural perspective, human life is utterly pointless. Many people claim to be thoroughgoing atheists and materialists, but I don’t believe that many, if any, of them really are. If someone seriously believed that death is the absolute end of a person’s existence—that there is no continuing personal existence; no God; no righting of injustices; and no compensation for the unequal distribution of suffering and pain of this life—then I cannot see why anyone would put up with the inconvenience of another day. Hope is more than a comfort: it is what keeps one from concluding that life is utterly meaningless: “When the honest soul is confronted with the cruel injustice of this life, how it rejoices when it remembers the eternal justice of its eternal God! With the knowledge of its own wretchedness, it utters with a fruitful desire that Pauline exclamation: Non vivo ego—it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And he will live forever” (Furrow, 892).
Hope is, of course, intimately linked to faith. By faith we believe that God really exists, that He has spoken to us, that He took human form and suffered on the cross so that we could live united to Him forever.
Believing this, it is obvious that we have good grounds for entertaining the wildest, most extravagant of hopes. We believe God chose freely to undergo the most excruciating method of execution devised by human ingenuity, and that He did this to show us just how much He loves each one of us. Furthermore, He promised that if we unite our sufferings to His, this will be a means of righting wrongs, and expiating our own sins, as well as winning graces for others. Given that fact, how can we not be sustained by hope and consider that every obstacle, every disappointment, every pain—even to the point of agony—is, in reality, a great blessing; that from the vantage point of heaven, we will see the good that has been accomplished through our acceptance of every trial. Now, that is something that should give us a lot of hope—even anticipatory pleasure, while we are still slogging through it all down here in the fog. “In our poor present life, let us drink to the last from the chalice of pain. What does it matter to suffer for ten, twenty, fifty years, if afterwards there is heaven forever, forever … forever!”, (The Way, 182).
But hope is also important when things are going okay. Sometimes the most difficult times are those when everything is humming along well and there are no great problems, but there is no great joy either. This seems the typical mind-set of middle age: Is that all there is? You work hard; put in long hours, at work or raising the children; then here you are—you own a house, two cars, you take nice vacations, and life still seems somehow inadequate. Hope is that deep intuition that life is supposed to yield more, something deeper, truer, more extreme than simple, comfortable domestic life. That yearning is for heaven and the beatific vision.
It seems hope is more than just the desire for happiness: it seems almost an enjoyment of a happiness not yet fully possessed. It is like the pleasure of anticipation engaged couples experience as they contemplate their approaching wedding, or the pleasure of looking forward to a family reunion at the holidays: there is already in the anticipation an element of the happiness and joy that is foreseen.
Advent is an excellent time to foster that understanding of hope. It is as if Christ were going to be born for the first time. We should try to do things to kindle that sense that, at last, the desire of every nation, of every human heart, is coming into the world. For that is what we celebrate at Christmas. God created us with a desire for Him. There is no finite good than can satisfy the human heart: we can only attain happiness united to God. And since we do not have the ability to reach God, God reaches down to us, coming in the most accessible, even adorable way He could devise: as a helpless child.
During Advent, we should encourage this spirit of anticipation with our children. Use Advent candles; use Advent calendars. Do special things, and increase family prayers for special intentions. We should also try to make Christmas as festive and joyous as possible.