308 HOPE

YOUCAT Lesson 308

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

308  What is hope?

Hope is the power by which we firmly and constantly long for what we were placed on earth to do: to praise God and to serve him; and for our true happiness, which is finding our fulfillment in God; and for our final home: in God.  [1817-1821, 1843]

Photo above: …..Benedict XVI: "The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life." …..308

Hope is trusting in what God has promised us in creation, in the prophets, but especially in Jesus Christ, even though we do not see it.  God’s Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can patiently hope for the Truth.  1-3

“Glory means good report with God, response, acknowledgement and welcome into the heart of things.  The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”  C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”  Romans 8:26

1817-1821, 1843

Hope

1817   Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."( Hebrews 10:23.)⁸⁴ "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life."( Titus 3:6-7.)⁸⁵ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

1818   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

1819 Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice.( Compare Genesis 17:4-8; Gen 22:1-18.)⁸⁶ "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations."( Romans 4:18.)⁸⁷ –CCC

1820 Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. The beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint."( Romans 5:5.)⁸⁸ Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf."( Hebrews 6:19-20.)⁸⁹ Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation."( 1 Thessalonians 5:8.)⁹⁰ It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation."( Romans 12:12.)⁹¹ Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire. –CCC

1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will.( Compare Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 7:21.)⁹² In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end"(Matthew 10:22; compare Council of Trent: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1541.)⁹³ and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved."( 1 Tim 2:4.)⁹⁴ She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.( St. Teresa of Avila, Excl. 15:3.)⁹⁵ –CCC

IN BRIEF

1843 By hope we desire, and with steadfast trust await from God, eternal life and the graces to merit it. --CCC