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Dear Friend, As we continue through what seems like a desert sojourn brought on by the COVID pandemic, our nation is mired in an incredibly divisive and trying time. I sense that God is clearing away non-essential things to make us realize what is truly important; and, what is more important than faith and family. Let’s embrace this time as an opportunity to sharpen our priorities and to unite more fully in Jesus and Mary as we continue with our series, “Return to Virtue.” The Theological Virtue of HopeSt. Augustine said in his Confessions that nations don’t have souls and therefore must endure the consequences of human actions in this world only. In other words, nations have no hope of an afterlife – but humans do. Ironically, those who have hope in a life to come are the ones who have the greatest positive impact on societies in the here-and-now because they never despair of the ravages of the world or the sins of men. They bring a supernatural view of the world to the problems of society, and they address these problems from a moral perspective. God is in charge. God’s plan will eventually win. We believe that, hope in it and work for it. American society really needs that supernatural view right now. Radical VirtueWhen we launched our “radical solution to our nation’s problems” weeks ago, we made the case that we can only take our country back by restoring virtue. And virtue begins with each one of us. The most essential and greatest of all the Christian virtues are what we call the theological virtues – Faith, Hope, and Charity. We are talking in this email specifically about Hope as a radical virtue, radical meaning “rooted” in the very life of God. That is the key to all the theological virtues. They come from God. They cannot be gained by human effort, although we must also cooperate with the grace they give. They are gifts of God and must be bestowed on us. And that is the very reason why the theological virtues are so powerful. They are sparks of God’s very life. The Virtue of HopeThe Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says an amazing thing about Hope that sounds oddly like something the American founding fathers might have said: The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity. (CCC, 1818) Hope is an aspirational virtue. In other words, it is rooted in the heart of man and does all kinds of wonderful things for our inner life: it “inspires” and “purifies” our activities; it “sustains” us and keeps us “from discouragement”’; it “preserves us from selfishness” – wow! The Church teaches us, essentially, that Hope has all kinds of actual benefits for temporal life as well as eternal. Hope is a Firm Anchor
And there precisely is where the strength of this virtue comes from – from God’s strength, not our own. Hope is based in a humility of heart to recognize that we need God and that “without God [we] can do nothing” (John 15:5). Hope in God is the inner strength for each individual and for society. The Book of Hebrews encourages us to hold fast to the hope that lies before us. This we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm, which reaches into the interior behind the veil, where Jesus has entered on our behalf as forerunner. (Hebrews 6:23) Imagine a society of men and women whose souls are firmly anchored in the strength of God even while the turbulent seas of unrest rage all around them. In our own day, we witnessed the valiant people of Catholic Poland endure seventy years of Communist tyranny with the firm Hope that they would eventually be free of that terrible system of evil. And we all know how that story ended. The fall of Communism was a victory of Hope. Hope as the Source of Endurance and JoyThe story of Poland points out another aspect of Hope that characterizes all who have it in their heart: Hope is best expressed by endurance; that is, perseverance through trials, never giving up and never wavering in belief of something better. Hebrews 11 points out that after believing God’s promises, the patriarchs and great saints of the Old Testament – Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and others – all waited for their fulfillment, even though the coming Christ was still far off: They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth (Hebrews 11:13). Just as numerous generations of Poles died before the ’90s without seeing an end to Communism, so Hope does not always achieve its end…right now. It is the confident expectation that what God has promised will come true, in time. Far from being a passive submission to fate or a depressing acceptance of the evils of this world, Hope gives us joy, even in our trials. “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer,” said St. Paul to the Romans (12:12). There was a man of Hope. What Are People of Hope to Do?This question has two positive answers. First, people of Hope always act to improve the conditions of society and of their fellow man. Are there people around you who are in despair or suffering? Be the light of Hope to them. Reach out and strengthen those who are going through trials. And second, where solutions to society’s problems cannot be gained quickly, people of Hope embody the endurance that helps society survive earthly evils and problems. Identify the groups and individuals who are working for long-term change in society. Support them, strengthen them, participate in campaigns that add to the cumulative efforts for change even if you don’t see the fruits right now. That is the endurance of the saints. The Final WordThe ultimate expression of Hope is purely supernatural: we pray for the salvation of all souls, even the souls of our enemies. St. Paul asked Timothy “that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone” because God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1.4). People of hope pray … for all people, all the time, and in all circumstances. Working and praying for the salvation of others is a great virtue and is the ultimate sign of our Hope in the saving power of Christ! Please stay tuned for the final installment of Return to Virtue, the theological virtue of Charity. And please pray for us as we pray for you and your families! Your friend in Jesus and Mary, Thomas J. McKenna
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The essential element of hope is a
desire for unending life with God, which is gained by “placing our
trust in God’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on
the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 1817).
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