Chapter 5. The Virtue of Hope

From faith, which gives us, as in a glass, a vision of God and of eternity, springs up the hope of the Beatific Vision. But hope is also a virtue of the Holy Ghost. S. Paul calls God the God of hope. He says, ' The God of hope fill you with all peace and joy in believing, that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy Ghost.'1 He says also that we are ' saved by hope.'* Hope is therefore a part of our sanctification.

God is the God of hope because He is that which we hope for — that is, Goodness, Beauty, and Sweetness. He is the Giver of hope because He has revealed Himself, and promised to us His eternal bliss. He is also the Supporter of hope because the grace which He has infused is continually renewed and strengthened by the Holy Ghost.

Hope, then, is a virtue or habit which gives us confidence of eternal bliss, and makes us desire to possess and to use, by God's help, all the means of attaining it.

1. First, as to the nature of hope. Faith 1 Rom. xv. 13. 2 Rom. viii. 24.

reveals the end of man, and hope desires it. Faith shows us that God is the only adequate, perfective, and eternal end of man; and hope desires it above all things. It is therefore made up of desire and trust.*

(1) It is a desire of all good in this life and in the next, a hunger and thirst of the soul for its own proper end, and of all the means which we can reach to insure the attainment of our end, including the gift of final perseverance.

(2) And this desire is confirmed and sustained by a trust or confidence founded upon the character and promises of God, and upon our experience of His goodness and care over us in the past. The more we contemplate God by the light of faith as the fulness of all perfections, of love, mercy, pity, generosity, the more hope grows in strength and in desire. And the more we live in hope, the more we grow in confidence founded upon our own experience of His absolution, His continual

» S. Thomae, Sum. Theol. 2. 2, q. 17.

support, His secret consolations. It was this experience of which S. Paul said, ' I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.'4

2. The fruits of hope are, (1) first, appreciation of God super omnia, because what faith shows hope reaches after by desire. The experience of the past, and the confidence of the future, make real and present in foretaste that which we hope for. ' How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness which Thou hast hid for them that fear Thee.'5 It is that foretaste of the eternal sweetness in the kingdom of God that gives to hope its power of realisation.

(2) And from this springs up a fear of losing God, the object of our hope. But this fear is not servile or mercenary, but filial and full of peace. The more we desire anything, the more we fear to lose it; the higher our hope of gaining it, the greater * 2 Tim. i. 12. 5 Pa xxx. 20.

our pain if we fail. The pain of loss will be greatest in those who were almost saved, if at the last they fall from God, as a shipwreck in sight of the haven is sadder than on the high sea. And this holy fear produces a great humility, a consciousness of our dependence upon God, of the in stability of our will, of the instability of our state and strength. It shows us that it is ' by the grace of God that we are that which we are.'6 Hope casts out all trust in ourselves, but it confirms greatly our trust in God. And this confidence excites in us a constant effort to attain our eternal end, and a careful diligence lest we be disappointed of our hope. There is nothing possible in God's service that hope will not attempt. S. Paul says, * I can do all things through Christ strengthening me,'7 or, as the word is, ' strengthening me within.' We may hope and strive for any measure or degree of sorrow for sin, of mortification of self, of detachment from the world, of • 1 Cor, xv. 10. T Phil. iv. 13.

singleness of eye, of purity of intention, of holiness of heart, of union with God in charity. All these things are possible, for they are all duties which fall under the commandments, and the degree of their perfection falls under the counsels; and the Holy Ghost never counsels any one to anything without giving the strength to do it. From all this comes one more fruit, a great courage in God's service. So long as we hope for victory, we shall fight man fully. If fear or doubt of mastery come upon us we shall neither strike home nor stand firm against the sin that besets us. So long as we hope to escape from temptations by night, we put out all speed. If we think escape to be impossible, we slacken speed and are overtaken; and to be over taken is to be overcome. If we swim for our life, so long as we hope to reach the shore we swim strongly. When we despair of safety, we sink. So in our spiritual life and warfare. Hope gives strength. To faint in our confidence is weakness. It is to fail in trust of the Holy Ghost, with whom all things are possible. He can make us penitents in fervour and perseverance, and Saints; for God can, even of these stones, raise up Saints for His king dom.

3. Lastly, the opposites of hope are two.

(1) First, presumption, or blind and baseless hope. Such is the hope of those who, depending on God's mercy, forget His holiness and His justice. And this they do because they neither know then-own sinfulness, nor the sinfulness of sin, nor the sanctity of God. They assume that their sins are not beyond the measure of God's patience, and that their own contrition is not the sorrow of the hire ling. Such, again, is the hope of those who use all the means of grace without due dispositions of heart. Frequent Communion and a lax life breeds not the hope inspired by the Holy Ghost, but presumption. From this comes trust in self, and an intellectual simulation of piety, which deceives our own conscience. Then we grow confident in our safety, and venture into the occasions of sin. And being conscious of many things which displease God, and would displease ourselves if our eelf-love did not speedily turn away from them, we console ourselves, as S. Augus tine did, by saying, ' To-morrow and to morrow' I will turn to God and do penance. In the meanwhile we absolve ourselves with exceeding facility, trusting to make all right before we die. But who can promise himself time or the means of absolution, or the disposition to receive it? Who can say that he will not be then what he is now? And yet he would be afraid to die as he is. This, then, is blind and baseless hope, or presumption.

(2) The other opposite is the direct contrary, or despair. When by mortal sin charity is lost, hope and faith still remain. Hope still desires God, and the experience of His past mercies brings men back to Him. But if hope gives way before the light of faith, which shows not only the repentance of Peter, but the despair of Judas; not only the light and love of the Sacred Humanity, but the Great White Throne and the worm that dieth not, then the soul falls a second time. Hope dies, and faith alone remains. Such is a terrible state, implanting fear, not holy or filial, but servile, and servilely servile. ' The devils also believe and tremble,'8 because for them hope is impossible; but a man who has lost hope fears without hope, which is morally the same. From this come many terrible fruits — weariness of God and enmity against Him, a disgust of all sanctity, and a malice against those who persevere in a holy life. Such despair is a foretaste of the worm that dieth not, and of the misery of those who, under the just judgment of God, gnawed * their tongues for pain.'9 But no man comes to this save by the fault of his own free wilL A love of the Holy Ghost will keep us from this fearful state. • S. James ii. 19. • Apoc. xvi. 10.

1. Therefore hope for the greatest gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost. They were all purchased for you by the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. They are yours by right, for He has given them to you. * All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.'10 His redemption purchased them for you, and His sovereignty gives them to you. He has promised to give them to all who ask Him, and He delights in being asked, and asked for the greatest things of His kingdom. He loves to be trusted; and to ask great things is to show great trust in a great love. Timid prayers and low aspirations are false humility, for we ask not for our own merits, but for His. Hope honours Him. Ask for perfect sanctification, for perfect expiation. S. Leonard of Port Maurice used to say, ' I hope to go to heaven without purgatory.' He meant, there is no bound to be set to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And without a doubt a soul that hopes and aspires for so »« 1 Cor. iii. 23.

great a grace will aim and strive at a proportionate perfection in humility, charity, purity, and union with God.

2. From such a hope will spring a great fear of the occasions of sin — that is, even in lawful and innocent things which have been at any time, through the sin that is in us, the cause of our offending God. In themselves they were not temptations. We made them to be so. To go into them willingly again shows a want of appreciation of God, of His love, of His sanctity, of His hatred of sin. It shows, too, that there can be little hatred of sin in us, and fchat, as S. Augustine says, we avoid sin more from fear of hell than from hatred of evil — that is, that we hate sin less than we hate hell. And this convicts us of a want of generosity, and shows that we serve God for hire; and implies that if we could sin without being eternally lost, we should not be unwilling to offend God and to deface His likeness in our souL

Hope does not consist in making the least of our sins, and the most of anything good we may have done. On the contrary, it is a confidence, not in ourselves, but in God, and that in the light of the Holy Ghost, who shows to us all the evil we have done, and all the evil that is in us. He shows us to ourselves in the light in which He sees us. In it we see ourselves, and are overwhelmed; but we do not see Him from whom the light is cast. It is the sign of His presence in us, and we trust in Him for the rest. There are three things which He shows to us.

(1) Our nothingness as creatures. We become conscious that we are dust quick ened by the breath of the Holy Ghost. It was He who breathed into the face of Adam, and in him into us, the spiraculum vitce, the breath of life, which lives still by the continuous will of God. If it were withdrawn, we should return at once to the dust.

(2) We learn next our unworthiness as servants. We fail of the end for which we were made; we waste the powers of nature and the grace of the Holy Ghost; we abuse and squander His seven gifts.

(3) And lastly, He shows us our sinfulness as sons of God and our ingratitude as His friends; for He brings all things to our remembrance — childhood, boyhood, youth, and manhood — with all the long reckoning of sins, mortal and venial, de liberate and half deliberate, of thought and word and deed, by leaving good undone and by doing evil, by our great insensibility and our little love. All this we must learn be fore we die. And when we learn it we may cast ourselves upon His patient love, which we have so long and so often grieved; and, in spite of all, we may say, l In Te, D online, speravi, non confundar in seternum,' — ' In Thee, 0 Lord, have I hoped; I shall not be for ever confounded.'

Through the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, in which alone is all my trust, I beseech Thee, 0 most merciful God, the Sanctifier of my soul, that I may never be confounded of my hope. Take from me both presumption and despair, and fill me with a confidence in Thy power and love, and a consciousness of my own sinfulness. I hope all things from Thee, because Thou art the God of hope, and Thou hast both purchased and promised to me the glory of Thy kingdom and the Vision of Thyself.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me.