The Visitation Superior of Annecy speaks to us about Hope:
It is part of our life, of our prayer. What do we hope for? We hope for a beautiful flowering, good weather, healing of a person, dynamism in our comunity, conversion, change … When this hope does not succeed, we are disappointed. It is discouragement before a situation that does not change, where dynamism flies away. Nothing is going right anymore. Why ?
We stop at small expectations and don’t look at the big hope which is faith in God, the Love of God. Hope is belief and waiting for everything from God. Hope is the equivalent of faith. When we hope we live differently.
St Paul says that Abraham hoped against all hope. God had promised him that his generation would be multiplied like the stars from the sky and the sand from the sea and however he receives the command to kill his son Isaac.Abraham hopes against all hope. He builds on the word that God gave him.
Oh ! says St Francis de Sales it is a true and solid foundation- the word of God because it is infallible: it does not deceive.
So walking 3 days and 3 nights with his poor Isaac, who is responsible for the wood of the sacrifice, he asked his father where the holocaust was. To which Abraham replied:
My son, the Lord will provide for it.
0 my God, that we would be happy if we could get used to making this response in our hearts when they are concerned about something: the Lord there will provide, and after that we will have no more anxiety, trouble, or
eagerness, no more than Isaac! for he was silent, believing that the Lord was there would provide, as his father had told him.
Great is certainly the confidence that God requires that we have in his fatherly care and in his divine providence. But why should we not have it, seeing that no one could have been deceived? No one trusts in God, who does not reap the fruits of his trust. To hope in God against all hope you have to believe in God. It is a necessary living faith.
Christian hope calls, says Benedict XVI, to our intelligence, to our human responsibility, to our freedom.
In an article on holiness to which all men are called Pope Francis writes: “It is necessary that on the path of holiness we are united by hope, hope that does not disappoint. This hope is like a key.
Hope is the virtue of a heart that does not close in the dark, does not stay in the past but knows how to see tomorrow. “
I am struck by how much the liturgy invites us to hope which demands an attitude of a watchman.
•! • ” I hope in the Lord with all my soul, I hope and wait for his word. P 129
•! • “The Lord delights in those who fear him, in those who hope for his love “Ps 146
•! • By faith, hold on solid and firm. Do not allow yourself to be turned away from hope
that you received by listening to the gospel proclaimed to all creatures under
heaven (Colossians)
“We need hope, smaller or larger, which,day by day keep us on the way. But without the great hope that must
surpass everything else, it is not enough. This great hope, perhaps only God alone who embraces the universe, and who can propose it to us, and gives us what, we alone cannot reach.
God is the foundation of hope, this God who has a human face and who loved us to the end each individually and all of humanity.
It is important for us to repeat to ourselves that our hope is always essentially also hope for others.
Only in this way isit really hope for me. We should always ask ourselves the question: “what can I do to make sure others are saved and the star of hope thus arises for others? ” (Benedict XVI)
What is my commitment knowing that charity is the active hope of what the others can become with the help of our brotherly support.
I close with these words from Pope Francis to the young and to all Christians.
He is in you, he is with you and never abandons you. No matter how far you go, the
Risen is there, calling you and waiting for you to start again. When you feel old
by sadness, bitterness, fears, doubts or failures, he will always be there
to give you strength and hope.