FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP
Human life is indeed a narrative of hopes in the plural – human hopes – and of hope in the singular – Christian or theological hope. The 2025 Jubilee Year is the Holy Year of Hope. We wish to reflect on hope. Thereafter, we meditate on the nature of Christian hope, on the dimensions and properties of hope, on sins against hope, on hope as creative fidelity to the present. Finally, the author tells us how he nurtures his hope and hopes, mainly his theological hope.
We start by answering the question, what is hope?
NATURE OF CHRISTIAN HOPE
At the beginning of the twenty first century, we observe our world and see violence, injustice, division, and death – and the terrible wars. On the other hand, we also see justice, solidarity, compassion, martyrdom, and abundant life. For most people, ours is still a hopeful world and tomorrow will be better, in spite of its current miseries and uncertainties.
As citizens of this world, Christians with many other believers are asked to give a reason for their hope (1 Pet 3:15) – their hope in heaven! Still many Christians today do not seem to live as hopeful people and are not able to give a convincing reason for their hope.
In Christian perspective, hope is – as we all know – one of the three theological virtues. The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity are three ways to respond to God.The three theological virtues, Pope Francis says, “express the heart of Christian life.” Protestant theologian Jonathan Wilson describes faith as the Christian way of knowing, hope as the Christian way of being, and charity as the Christian way of doing. The three are inseparably united. Hope, in particular, is closely linked to faith and charity: faith guarantees the blessings of hope (Heb 11:1); hope is not deceptive because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
Saint Paul considers hope as one of the virtues of the great triad of Christian virtues. The greatest of the three is charity (1 Cor 13:13; Col 3:14). In Christian tradition, only charity gives perfection to faith and hope – and to all virtues. Charity is the form of all virtues, especially of faith and hope. Without charity, the other two theological virtues of faith and hope cannot be fertile. St. John of the Cross wrote that “without charity, no virtue is graceful before God.” Hope can only attain its object – eternal life – if informed by charity. Pope Francis: Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross. The Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope (Bull of Convocation of the Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025, Spes non confundit (May 9, 2024], no. 3).
Although faith is considered the most basic virtue and charity, the most perfect one, hope is, perhaps, the most urgently needed in our earthly life. Saint Augustine said it well: The life of mortal life is the hope of immortal life. Christian hope is grounded on faith and nurtured by charity. Human life is indeed a narrative of hopes in the plural – human hopes – and of hope in the singular – theological hope. However, human hopes without theological hope cannot save. In fact, as Benedict XVI says in Spe Salv (27), hopes without hope is not hope.
It is said that hope is a summary of the whole Bible. Biblical hope begins with the Old Testament, which is “the classical book of hope.” The Israelites lived for the future in hope: “O Israel, hope in the Lord, both now and forever” (Ps 131:3). Hope in God is clearly linked to trust in God (cf. Eccl, 2:6; Prov 3:5-6; Ps 23:1-3). The new hope of the Christian is “a better hope” (Heb 7:19), a hope rooted in God the Father, in Christ, our hope (I Tim 1:1), and in the Holy Spirit and his gifts (Rom 5:5: 2 Cor 1:22); Eph 1:13-14). With C. Spicq, we may define biblical hope thus: “The certain expectation of eternal life and of the appropriate means to attain it – an expectation founded on the promises, the fidelity, the love and the power of God.”
Christian hope is theological hope: a hope focused on God as our end and as our omnipotent and merciful gift for the journey. Hope is hope in the Blessed Trinity: God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit grounds a new hope, a supernatural hope that perfects natural hope – human hopes are raised up by theological hope. Christ is our hope (1 Tim 1:1), the fulfillment of the promise, and the Spirit that Father and Son give us is the Spirit of the promise fulfilled, but not yet consummated.
Christian hope is faith-based hope (both linked by trust). It is a hope in definitive salvation and in the transformation of the world. Facing the reality of our world, Benedict XVI underlines that the rejection of God is the rejection of hope. He praises the development of modern science, but – he adds – science cannot save: “Science contributes much to the good of humanity, but it is not able to redeem humanity. Man is redeemed by love, which renders social life good and beautiful.”
Hope is not naïve optimism but a gift amid the realities of life. Christian hope is “the theological virtue that sustains our lives and shields them from groundless fears.” Theological hope gives “inward directions and purpose to the life of the believers.” With hope, we may make “credible and attractive” our witnessing of the faith and love dwelling in our hearts (cf. Pope Francis, Bull of Convocation Jubilee 2025).
The heart of our faith and the basis of our hope is “the death and resurrection of Christ.” Our life is “directed to the encounter with the Lord of glory.” “The resurrection of Jesus is the gateway to the theology of the future. There is no Christian hope for the future that is not based in the unique event of Jesus’ resurrection” (Michael Downey). In our Baptism, we received God’s gift of a new life, a life “capable of transfiguring death’s drama.” The object and end of hope:“Eternal life, or full communion with God, eternal happiness or the end of our hopeful journey of life” (Pope Francis).
Indeed, “The resurrection of Jesus is the gateway to the theology of the future.” The resurrection of Jesus offers to humankind a new eschaton that puts death to death, and, thus, opens the door of hope to all human beings in particular. Certainly, death is the greatest challenge of hope. Undoubtedly, if God can create from nothing, He can return the dead to life. To believe in hope implies to believe in the resurrection of the dead. “Only an eschatology that is drawn through the needle’s eye of death and resurrection can carry a hope in the face of death itself” (C. Braaten, The Futurist Option). The love of God will prevail over our death.
What is the answer to the real situation of human existence? It is mainly hope: “The virtue of hope is the primary virtue corresponding to the status viatoris. It is the authentic virtue of the ‘not yet’.” After all, “People cannot live without hope… People can live without faith and apparently many do. Many also live without love. But without hope, something to move us onward, we simply cannot go on” (Michael Downey, Hope Begins Where Hope Begins).
Have hope, will travel!
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