Our Only Hope

For most of us, the beginning of Lent was like any other. We chose which Lenten practices we wanted to do, if possible, we made a point to go to Mass on Ash Wednesday, and we settled in for another 40-day season of purple. But we did not count on this: ending Lent and spending the Holy Triduum sheltering at home, social distancing, with sickness, death, economic difficulties and stress looming over us. We did not choose this cross. And yet, because of it, God is using it to give us a tremendous opportunity to more deeply enter into the sacred mysteries of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. What we need, now more than ever, is hope.

Hope is an overused and often little-understood word. Hope, as a theological virtue, is a gift from God infused in our souls at baptism, which enables us to “move and stretch forth toward the arduous good”, that is by hope we reach toward the goodness of God even when it isn’t easy. Hope enables us to desire God above all things and to trust Him for our salvation. Hope anchors us in God, no matter what storms or difficulties may arise. “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…” (Hebrews 6:19-20).

While it is a gift from God, we must cooperate with God’s grace by exercising the virtue of hope given to us. Right now, we are in a unique place of human history. Nearly the entire world has been knocked off balance – our universal human frailty has been laid bare to us - where will we turn? To whom will we go? What do we really desire? These are questions each of us must answer for ourselves, and, because we change over time (even from moment to moment), we must answer them repeatedly.

Over the next three days as we walk with Jesus through his final days and hours before His death, consider the disciples of Jesus. Two of the most prominent are Peter and Judas. Both were intimate companions of Jesus for three years: they traveled with him, ate with him, shared in his ministry. When given the opportunity to leave, they didn’t, and Peter even professed him the long-awaited Messiah. But what happened that fateful Passover? Why did Judas betray Jesus? Why did Peter deny him?

We are told in the Gospel of John that Judas was a thief – he placed his hope in material goods. He must have had some abilities with money, for he was entrusted with the group’s finances and embezzled from them. We tend to think our weaknesses as our trouble areas, but Judas shows us that it is often our strengths and gifts that can be our downfall. Some commentators have also theorized that Judas was a Zealot and was hoping in a political Messiah that would free the Jews from the power of the Romans; if that is true, then he also desired worldly power. Whatever his motivation, and as with most of us it was likely mixed, Judas sinned against hope in his ultimate despair – he gave up on the goodness of Jesus, on the goodness of God and His mercy.

Peter also sinned against hope in his pride and presumption. He did not trust in God, but rather trusted in himself to stand firm by Jesus, and he failed bitterly. There is another way we can sin through presumption – by taking for granted God’s almighty power or His mercy. Many slip into some kind of presumption all too easily – we give lip service to God, but trust in our own abilities, our wealth, our power or our influence. We think we meant well, we wanted God’s glory, but we wanted it on our terms, in our way, and in our time.

Or perhaps we just didn’t take time for God. We were too busy with our life activities and told ourselves, “I’ll go to Mass / prayer / confession, etc. next week, when things slow down, etc.” Or we put off discerning our vocation or taking a particular action we feel God calling us to do. But the problem with this presumption is that eventually, for all of us, there will be no next week. By not making a decision or taking action, the door will eventually close for good. The result of these presumptions is that, at best, we become lukewarm in our faith, and, at worst, we because haughty and prideful, despising God. Yet, before we console ourselves by thinking lukewarm is better than prideful after all, we should remember Jesus told Saint Faustina that lukewarm souls caused Him His greatest suffering in the garden of his agony.

So what are we to do? Stand firm, take heart, and hope in God.

• If we want hope, we need to humbly ask God for it. Make frequent acts of hope.

O my God, relying on your infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of your grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

• Avoid complaining, murmuring and making negative or critical comments. Avoid media, television and movies that have negative messages or dialogue. This does not mean living in a false optimism or denying the truth of something truly sad or evil; but it does mean we put things in proper perspective and keep our eyes on Jesus, His Kingdom and trust He has a much bigger plan for our supreme good.

• Hope is closely linked to the virtues of humility and magnanimity. We need to acknowledge our wretched sinfulness AND acknowledge that we are beloved children of God. The cross tells us both these things - it was the price of our sins, and Jesus embraced it out of infinite love.

• We practice magnanimity by seeking to do great things for God. And we need to see “great things” as God sees them. By the world’s standards, Mary, Jesus, the disciples and most of the saints were failures. But God sees and works differently – we need to be unreserved and generous, surrendering to God and let Him work through us as He wills. Begin with small acts of kindness for others. Write a friend or loved one a note or letter expressing your gratitude for that person. Keep gratitude and hope lists - the gratitude list for all the things and people for which your are grateful; the hope list for those you encounter who need encouragement or a boost of hope - commit to pray for them and check in with them periodically.

• Hope is also closely linked with the beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” By hope, we desire God’s goodness, we desire to see Him face to face, we desire heaven for all eternity. And we desire it above all things. To strengthen this desire, we must detach our hearts from anything that keeps us from moving toward God, the “Earthly P’s”: pleasures, possessions, power and prestige. The fifth “P”, pride, underlies all of them as self-centered love. For some of us, this means God will call us to renounce them completely. For others, he asks us to discipline our use of them, holding them with open hands. Begin by giving away items that are burdening you with clutter or which are little used. Give someone a little extra time and attention. Volunteer to help someone who needs an extra hand. Deny yourself little comforts and pleasures and offer your sacrifice to Jesus. If you are used to being in control and making decisions, let someone else take the wheel - this is a great way to practice surrendering: when we do this, we must realize it won’t go all our own way and probably won’t be done as we would do it, but the more we let go of control, the freer we become and the happier we will be.

Over the course of the Triduum, let’s enter into the Gospel passages we hear and read. As our chaplain is fond of saying, it is not a distant tale about someone else. This is our story. How have we failed in the past? How have we betrayed or denied Jesus? How have we run away in fear? Whatever it is, let us bring it to the cross. Let us stand with Mary and Mary Magdalene and John. Let us join our sorrows with theirs, and let us hope for our resurrection day and the eternal joy of seeing God face to face, to know Him as we are known. Hail holy cross, our only hope!

Celebrating Hope: Dominic and the Assumption of Mary

Hope. It’s a word we hear a lot - it even became a campaign slogan - but do we really know what it is? It sounds good and on some level, we instinctively want it, but how can we get it? We can learn a lot about hope by looking to our Blessed Mother and our Holy Father Dominic.

Generally speaking, hope is a desire for a good that is difficult to obtain, with the expectation of eventually obtaining it.

As a supernatural virtue, like faith and charity, it is infused in us as a gift of God and by it we long for God and to spend eternity with Him. Hope motivates us to do acts of virtue, to seek God, to love and serve Him with the expectation that He will do what He has promised and grant us eternal happiness with Him.  By supernatural faith, we “see” our ultimate target - God - and it is by hope and charity that we fly and soar to the heights.

We can also think of hope with this analogy: picture a toddler who wants to be picked up. They stand in front of their parent, looking up, reaching as high as they can, standing on tip-toe even. No matter how hard they try, they cannot get themselves in their parent’s arms, but they have the expectation that their parent will look down with kindness and lift them the rest of the way. Hope is that desire and expectation, and yet more. Because without God’s gift of hope, we would never look and reach up in the first place.

Our Blessed Mother’s assumption is a lesson in hope.

By this teaching of the Church - that at the time Mary’s life ended on earth, God granted her the privilege of not having to wait until the end of time for the resurrection of her body, but instead her body and soul were assumed into heaven - the glorious triumph of her Son Jesus over sin and death shines all the more brightly. Mary was granted singular graces not because she earned or deserved them, but solely due to God’s lavish gifts of mercy. She was uniquely chosen to walk in unity with the life and her Son, Jesus. And just as His body did not see the corruption of death, so too was Mary’s body preserved from this.

Mary’s assumption teaches us that our hope does not lie in the things of this world - our bodies and souls are destined to a loftier end: heaven.

Materialism, so prevalent in Western culture today, “threatens to extinguish the light of virtue and ruin the lives of men by exciting discord.”

-Pope Pius XII
Munificentissimus Deus

Many monastics and saints have commented that our world would be much more peaceful if the words “mine” and “yours” ceased to exist.  So many of today’s arguments, battles, and wars are over material goods that cannot add one moment to our life on earth, nor increase our true happiness.  Some of the richest people in the world are also the most miserable.  And that is one reason why our Holy Father Dominic urged his sons and daughters to “make your treasure from voluntary poverty.”  Actual poverty frees a person from worldly cares because they have nothing to lug around or protect from damage or thieves.  “Voluntary” poverty implies more than actual poverty – it requires a detachment of the heart from material goods, a true poverty of spirit.  A person can be poor in fact and yet still chained by the desire to possess what they do not have. By choosing to be poor, a person not only renounces actual possession of goods, but also the desire to possess those goods. It is this detachment of the heart that makes it light enough to fly up to God.

Mary’s assumption reaffirms the dignity and beauty of the whole human person - body and soul.

While our ultimate destiny is not this world, we must also remember that God’s creation is good, including our bodies, because that is how God created. Yet, because of sin, “we groan…awaiting the redemption of our bodies.” Because we still labor under the effects of sin, we must discipline our bodies and emotions to put them in right relationship with our intellect and ultimately God.  But we should not abuse our bodies – the human person is both body and soul.  Our holy Father Dominic began his preaching mission in earnest when he encountered a heresy that denied the goodness of the created world, including the human body.  Dominic preached tirelessly against this heresy and spent himself to help provide for the corporal needs of the poor, even to the point of selling all he had, including his books, to help feed starving people during a famine.  Dominic also left us the heritage of his “Nine Ways of Prayer”, descriptions of how he prayed using body postures, gestures and his voice to praise God and intercede for others.

Mary’s assumption should stir our hearts to a stronger piety toward our heavenly Mother, and move us with the desire of sharing in the unity of Jesus Christ's Mystical Body. 

That is, it should make us more receptive to God’s gift of hope. Because hope is a supernatural virtue, it is a gift. Yet, there are things we can do to make ourselves more receptive to it and to the extent we have it, we should exercise it. In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul gives us a good place to start:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.

- Romans 5:1-5

From this we see that the road of hope passes through affliction. Our Blessed Mother showed us how to walk in this path as she walked it with her Son, for she endured affliction all the way to the foot of the cross on Calvary. And the saints also light this way for us. When things are darkest, that’s when we should look up all the more and wait for the dawn with desire and expectation - God will keep His promises! As the psalmist sings,

Those who sow in tears
will reap with cries of joy.

Those who go forth weeping,
carrying sacks of seed,
Will return with cries of joy,
carrying their bundled sheaves.

-Psalm 126:5-6

May we increase our love for her who shows her motherly heart to all the members of this august body.  And may our Mother Mary and holy Father Dominic intercede for us!