XX — HOPE

Presence of God. — O Lord, make my hope steadfast, for whoever hopes in You will never be confounded.

Meditation

1 — Faith makes you know God; you believe in Him with all your strength, yet you do not see Him. Therefore your faith needs to be sustained by the certainty that one day you will see your God, possess Him, and be able to be united to Him forever. This certainty is given you by the virtue of hope, which presents God to you as your infinite good, as your eternal reward. Faith tells you: God is goodness, beauty, wisdom, providence, charity, infinite mercy; and hope adds: this God, so great and so good, is yours; He wills to be yours; He is your eternal beatitude. Not only that, but while awaiting heaven, even here below He wills to be possessed by you through charity and invites you, already here below, to live in intimate union with Him.

You look at God, infinite and most perfect, so immensely above you, a weak and miserable creature, and you think: But how can I reach Him, how can I unite myself to Him who infinitely surpasses my capacity? And hope answers you: you can, because God Himself wills it; indeed, precisely for this end He created you and raised you to the supernatural state, furnishing you with all the helps necessary for so arduous an enterprise. The Council of Trent asserts that all of us must have a “most firm hope — firmissimam spem — in God’s help,” a help He has formally promised to those who love Him and have recourse to Him with trust: “Ask, and it will be given you — Jesus said — seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.... If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?” (Mt. 7:7, 11). The “good things” promised by Jesus are first of all those contained in the act of hope: eternal life and the graces necessary to merit it. This is the object of hope; this is what we must ask and implore before every other thing.

2 — When you place yourself before God and before the most lofty end of union with Him, you immediately perceive that the great obstacle standing between you and God is your sins, your frailty, and your misery, whereby it is so difficult for you to live in a manner worthy of God. But hope comes to your aid by assuring you, on the part of infinite mercy, both pardon for sins and the grace necessary to live well, indeed to live holily.

The pardon of sins removes from you the obstacle to union with God; grace draws you near to Him and finally consummates the union. What comfort floods your soul when you, so weak that you cannot avoid every sin, think that God wants you to be sure of his pardon. Yes, every time that, sincerely repentant, you acknowledge your faults, He in fact forgives you through the merits of Jesus, and your sins are forgotten forever. Of this you must be certain; you are not allowed to doubt it, because it is not lawful to doubt the mercy and promises of God. “Though your sins be as scarlet,” said the Lord, “they shall become white as snow” (cf. Is. 1:18). Not only this, but God wants you likewise to be certain that He will grant you the graces necessary to live well, to conquer your temptations and defects, to progress in virtues; in just this way you will attain union with Him, not only in heaven, but also on earth. Therefore your ideal, an ideal of holiness, is not unrealizable. And God wants you to expect all this from Him, not because you deserve it, but because He is infinitely good, because He is the omnipotentia auxilians, the helping omnipotence always ready to come to our aid. Certainly, it would be presumption to hope that God will save and sanctify you without your cooperation; but if, on your part, you do all that is possible to avoid even the least faults and to practice virtue generously, you may hope with certainty that He will do for you what you, despite your efforts, cannot do. God wants you to be sure of this. Assurance is a property of perfect hope, and God wants you to exercise this virtue with perfection.

Colloquy

“Clothe me, O Lord, with the green livery of hope.

“Living hope in You gives the soul such vitality, courage, and elevation toward the things of eternal life that, by comparison with what it awaits there, all things of this world seem to it, as they truly are, withered, dry, dead, and without value. Give me, then, strong hope, O my God, so that I may strip myself of all worldly vanities and place my hope in nothing else, hoping for nothing that is found here below, but living only clothed in hope of eternal life. May hope be the helmet of salvation that protects my head from the wounds of the enemy and directs my gaze to heaven, allowing me to fix my eyes only on You, my God. As the eyes of a handmaid are fixed on the hands of her mistress, so may mine remain fixed on You, until You have mercy on me according to my hope. Grant that I look to nothing else and be satisfied with nothing but You; then You will take delight in me, so that in all truth I may say that I obtain from You as much as I hope for” (cf. G.O.S. II, 21, 6-8).

“To contemplate the greatness of your Divinity, O Lord, I need faith, and for action I need hope, because if I had no hope of seeing You one day, I would not have strength to labor here below. I desire earthly things no longer, no more, though in them I have never hoped. But I have living hope of obtaining, not the things of earth, in which worldlings vainly hope, but of obtaining You, my God.

“O Lord, give me firm hope, for I cannot be saved without this virtue well rooted and infused in the soul. It is necessary for me in order to obtain pardon for my sins and to reach my end. What delight hope gives my soul, making it hope for what in the homeland it must one day enjoy, making it already here below taste in part what in heaven it must eternally enjoy, understand, and possess — and that is You, my God” (St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).