FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP
Explaining the nature of theological hope, we now focus on some of its notes or properties. The notes that help unveil the nature of Christian hope are many. For our part, we shall develop three significant properties of hope, namely certain hope, patient hope and prayerful hope.
HOPE IS CERTAIN
Certitude is an essential property of Christian hope. Hope is faithful trust in God, and therefore unconditionally certain. Why? Because God’s merciful omnipotence (main motive of our hope) will not fail us! “I have not lost confidence, because I know who it is that I have put my trust in, and I have no doubt at all that he is able to take care of all that I have entrusted to him until that Day” (2 Tim 1:12; cf. Rom 5:5). Thus, the biblical definition of Christian hope: “The certain expectation of eternal life and of the opportune means to attain it – an expectation founded on the promises, the fidelity, the love and the power of God” (C. Spicq).Certainly, Christian hope “does not deceit or disappoint because it is grounded on the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love” (Pope Francis, Bull of Convocation Jubilee Year 2025, Spes non confundit).
There is certitude in our hope, but there is also fear! The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines hope as “the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God’s love and of incurring punishment” (CCC 2090).
Can we pilgrims be sure of ourselves? Saint Albert the Great asked himself when he was already old and close to heaven: Nunquid durabo? Will I endure until the end? We hope then with sure hope in God (I Pet 1:3) as well as with certain fear (Phil 2:13), with certain insecurity “The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall” (1 Cor 10:12).
Weakness, vulnerability, sinfulness, uncertainty are realities of the hope of the pilgrim. Thus, with certitude, fear is a characteristic of theological hope. The attainment of the object of hope – of eternal life – is difficult, that is arduum. Truly, we depend on God and on the hope of our brothers and sisters in the faith, but we also depend on ourselves: God wants and treasures our cooperation; God gave us freedom.
Will I be saved? Will you be saved? We are sure – certain – of God’s merciful love, but we are not sure of our cooperation with God: the perseverance of our will until the end. A loving hope does not allow fear to dominate us. Saint John of the Cross advises us: “Fear God with confidence.”
HOPE IS PATIENT
The first Christians were impatient. Why? It would seem that they did not understand then that the Lord was delaying his Final Coming! With patience, they learned to hope as believers in the Christ who came and is to come!
In our age, the main problem is not, perhaps, impatience for the final coming of the Lord, but passive resignation or just not expecting eagerly the Coming of the Lord. It seems that many of us Christians want to delay Jesus’ coming. After all, we are too busy, perhaps, and not hungry or just somewhere else.
Christian hope is patient (Heb 11:30; Rom 5:3-5; I Th 1:3; Jm 1:2-4, 11). Our faith asks us to be hopefully patient facing suffering. Suffering comes in many ways: as a personal failure, the chronic illness of a child, the death of a loved one; as injustice, violence, and destruction; as our own death. Pain may come at different times in our pilgrimage.
The great witnesses and models of patient, persevering and joyful hope are those who suffered much, like Job, Jeremiah, St. Paul, St. John of the Cross, Therese of the Child Jesus, the innocent victims of hatred, injustice and violence. Above all, Christ, the suffering servant, who went to his crucifixion meekly, serenely, and patiently – hopefully
The crucified Lord invites us and empowers us to accept suffering and to be sensitive to the sufferings of others. Our suffering may become redemptive suffering, if patiently bore and joined to the sufferings of Christ, our Redeemer (I Pet 2:21). Thus, our “crucified hope” (J. Moltmann) may be turned into a resurrection hope: I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us (Rom 8:18).
Christians “follow the poor Christ, the humble and cross-bearing Christ, in order to be made worthy of being partakers in his glory” (LG, 41.
In theological perspective, patience is an important moral virtue, or good habit\ that enables us to bear the physical or moral or spiritual hardships of life with tranquility, for the sake of greater goods and the greatest good – eternal life. Patience is a needed virtue to control or tame impatience, anger, and anxiety. Indeed, patience attains all things (St. Teresa of Avila).
Perseverance accompanies patience: hope is patient and persevering. It is, indeed, necessary to persevere until the end (Mt 10:22). The virtue of perseverance aids patient hope to be constantly patient up to the end.
Hope is humble and joyful. The Christian marches through life in spe gaudentes – joyful in hope (Rom 12:12). Happiness is not the opposite of joy: “It makes me happy to suffer for you” (Col 1:24). Hope is an essential ingredient of happiness in this life, and joy is a note of hope: “You have hope, this will make you cheerful” (Rom 12:12). The root of the hope of happiness is humility. Jesus said that “if we do not become like children, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:3). The hope of happiness is rooted in humility, that is, in being like children: being “little” was the root of the glorification of Christ (Phil 2:2-11), and is the ground of prayer.
HOPE IS PRAYERFUL
Prayer is essentially linked to hope: “Spes orat”- Hope prays. hope is prayerful! Most of our prayers in the Holy Mass and in the Divine Office ask God to help us attain heaven “Commit to the Lord your way, trust in him, and he will act” (Ps 37:5). The heart of our prayer – personal and communitarian – is the Holy Eucharist as Word and Sacrament. The Holy Eucharist is “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life” (Vatican II, SC, no. 12; LG, 11).
J. Wilson has important points on prayerful hope. According to him, the virtue of hope is shaped in the practice of worship. What we learn in worship is that God has already given us everything in Jesus Christ. Commenting on Isaiah, Wilson cautions us against the worship God detests, that is, a worship done with bloody hands and corrupt lives (Is 1:10-17; Ps 73). He writes: Much that we call worship is hopeless because it enables us to live in conformity to the illusions of the world rather than in conformity to the schaton of the gospel. We need to recover the practice of worship in hope so that our vision may be corrected and our witness faithful.
Christian prayer is personal, too: “When you pray, go to your private room…, pray to your Father who is in that secret place…” (Mt 6:6). Vatican II: “The Christian is assuredly called to pray with his brethren, but he must also enter into his chamber to pray to the Father in secret.” Still, even private prayer and all private exercises of piety are ordered to or flow from the liturgy, especially the Eucharist.
Prayer is a mediation of hope. The best mediating vocal prayer is the Our Father, which, according to St. Augustine, contains all that is related to hope.
Follow
