{1} Once all villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer all the people gathered, but only one boy came with an umbrella.
That's FAITH.
{2} When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them.
That's TRUST.
{3} Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarms to wake up.
That's HOPE.
{4} We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future.
That's CONFIDENCE.
{5} We see the world suffering, but still we get married and have children.
That's LOVE.
{6} On an old man's shirt was written a sentence I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.'
That's ATTITUDE.
- John Mangun
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Faith illustrated
Hope: the bridge between liberals and conservatives
For liberals emphasize love, often at the expense of faith, and conservatives emphasize faith, often at the expense of love. Hope builds bridges between the two other theological virtues, thus between liberals and conservatives. If you start with love, hope prods you into faith, for if you love someone, you want the dogmatic, glorious, supernatural truths of the faith about human destiny to be true. And if you start with faith, hope prods you into love, for if you believe what the Church teaches about human destiny, your love for God must become also love for his image in your neighbor, who is destined to share divine life. Hope builds bridges between faith and love, between conservatives and liberals, between present and future, between earth and heaven. --Peter Kreeft http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/hope.html
At God's pace
The Work, "firm, compact and secure," closely united to our Father in the same intention, has prayed, suffered, hoped, and worked. And this has meant an immense good for Opus Dei and for the entire Church... God constantly took the initiative, acting in many different ways in our Father’s heart and mind. We, his daughters and sons, have benefited from this... Despite our personal wretchedness the Work has traveled "at God’s pace." Our Father took up this pace heroically from the very beginning. In the midst of a divinely accompanied solitude, it was "his lot" to tackle the steepest slopes towards which our Lord was directing us. Our task was to follow him, all together, though perhaps we were unaware of the thorns that pierced his soul at each step.
Álvaro del Portillo,
Letter November 28, 1982, no. 3, in Rendere amabile la verità, p. 50.
Does vocation still mean anything today?
We all know that today the faith is still contested, is indeed again being contested, with the aim of attacking and overcoming us, so that we ask: Isn't it all in vain? How is the wretched power of the faith to survive among the gigantic powers of this world? Must it not simply be crushed between the world powers of atheism, must it not simply give in before technology and science and all their potential and discoveries? Must it not simply capitulate before egoism and the covetousness that have become overpowerful and can no longer be restrained?' And we might ask: 'Does it still make any sense today to become a priest, a sower of the word? Are there not for a young man more promising, more profitable and more successful occupations in which he can better develop his gifts?
Isn't the whole thing then a hopelessly outdated cause? Isn't the time past when the faithful hastened to church? Do you not see, we hear people say, how everything is slowly but surely crumbling away? How [can you fight] a losing battle?
In fact God is still continually moving incognito through history. He is still continually veiling his power in the garb of powerlessness. And still continually the true values, the divine values, truth, love, faith, justice, are the forgotten and powerless things in this world. And yet--this parable says: 'Be comforted!' God's harvest is growing: however much there are also fellow-travelers who run away as soon as this seems advisable; however much is done in vain, somewhere the word is ripening. Even today. Even today it is still not in vain that there are people who venture to proclaim the word and to be there for the sake of the word; who venture to resist the flood of selfishness, of covetousness, of unscrupulousness, and to build a dam against it. Somewhere in silence their seed is ripening. Nothing is in vain.
--Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Ministers of Your Joy, pp 15-16
"Teach me and heal me"
How you loved us, O good Father, who spared not even your only Son, but gave him up for us evil-doers! How you loved us, for whose sake he who deemed it no robbery to be your equal was made subservient even to the point of dying on the cross! Alone of all, he was free among the dead, for he had power to lay down his life and power to retrieve it. For our sake he stood to you as both victor and victim, and victorbecause victim; for us he stood to you as priest and sacrifice, and priest because sacrifice, making us your children instead of your servants by being born of you in order to serve us.
There is good reason for my solid hope in him, because you will heal all my infirmities through him who sits at your right hand and intercedes for us. Were it not so, I should despair; for many and grave are those infirmities, many and grave; but wider-reaching is your healing power. We might have despaired of ourselves, thinking your Word remote from any conjunction with mankind, had he not become flesh and made his dwelling among us. Filled with terror by my sins and my load of misery, I had been turning over in my mind a plan to flee into solitude; but you forbade me, and strengthened me by your words: To this end Christ died for all, that they who are alive might live not for themselves but for him who died for them.
See, then, Lord: I cast my care upon you so that I may live, and I will contemplate the wonders you have revealed.You know how stupid and weak I am: teach me and heal me. Your only Son, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, has redeemed me with his blood. Let not the proud disparage me, for I am mindful of my ransom. I eat it, I drink it, I dispense it to others, and as a poor man I long to be filled with it among those who are fed and feasted. And then, let those who seek him praise the Lord.
--St Augustine, Confessions
SERVANTS OF CHRIST'S JOY
That is precisely where one of the greatest challenges of our time lies. Indeed, today more than ever the priest, a man of the divine word and of the sacred, must be a man of joy and hope. To people who can no longer conceive that God is pure Love, he will always affirm that life is worth living and that Christ gives it its full meaning because he loves human beings, he loves them all.
The religion of the Curé d'Ars is a religion of joy, not a morbid quest for mortification as has sometimes been believed: "Our happiness is too great; no, no, we shall never understand it" (Nodet, p. 110), he would say, and further: "when we are travelling and see a bell-tower, this view should quicken our heart beat, just as the sight of the roof of her beloved's dwelling place quickens the bride's heart beat"(ibid.).
VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS
[ARS, SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 2009]
INTERIOR STRUGGLE AND HOPE
On earth, we are wayfarers, always on the go. This means that we have to keep on moving forward. Therefore be always unhappy about what you are if you want to reach what you are not. If you are pleased with what you are, you have stopped already. If you say,"It is enough," you are lost. Keep on walking, moving forward, trying for the goal. Don't try to stop on the way, or to go back, or to deviate from it.
- St. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop
THE CROSS FROOM DIFFERENT ANGLES
Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardour.
(St Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian priest, Doctor of the Church, 1090-1153)
Courage and Optimism
"We must not be afraid of the future. We must not be afraid of man. It is no accident that we are here. Each and every human person has been created in the 'image and likeness' of the One who is the origin of all that is. We have within us the capacities for wisdom and virtue. With these gifts, and with the help of God's grace, we can build in the next century and the next millennium a civilization worthy of the human person, a true culture of freedom... And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of this century have prepared the ground for a new springtime of the human spirit."
(John Paul II, Discourse in the United Nations, October 1995)
Each day, throughout this land, you and so many of your neighbors pray to the Father in the Lord’s own words: "Thy Kingdom come". This prayer needs to shape the mind and heart of every Christian in this nation. It needs to bear fruit in the way you lead your lives and in the way you build up your families and your communities. It needs to create new "settings of hope" (cf. Spe Salvi, 32ff.) where God’s Kingdom becomes present in all its saving power.
Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom also means being constantly alert for the signs of its presence, and working for its growth in every sector of society. It means facing the challenges of present and future with confidence in Christ’s victory and a commitment to extending his reign. It means not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal. It means overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness. It also means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, "there is no human activity -- even in secular affairs -- which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion" (Lumen Gentium, 36). It means working to enrich American society and culture with the beauty and truth of the Gospel, and never losing sight of that great hope which gives meaning and value to all the other hopes which inspire our lives.
And this, dear friends, is the particular challenge which the Successor of Saint Peter sets before you today. As "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation", follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who have gone before you! Hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom in this land!
(Benedict XVI, Homily, Mass at Yankee's Stadium, New York, 20 April 2008)
(This prayer was uttered while the Jews were in exile in Babylon. They had lost their land, their king, the Temple...)
Azariah stood in the heart of the fire, and he began to pray:
Oh! Do not abandon us for ever,
for the sake of your name;
do not repudiate your covenant,
do not withdraw your favour from us,
for the sake of Abraham, your friend,
of Isaac your servant,
and of Israel your holy one,
to whom you promised descendants as countless as the stars of heaven
and as the grains of sand on the seashore.
Lord, now we are the least of all the nations,
now we are despised throughout the world, today, because of our sins.
We have at this time no leader, no prophet, no prince,
no holocaust, no sacrifice, no oblation, no incense,
no place where we can offer you the first-fruits
and win your favour.
But may the contrite soul, the humbled spirit be as acceptable to you
as holocausts of rams and bullocks,
as thousands of fattened lambs:
such let our sacrifice be to you today,
and may it be your will that we follow you wholeheartedly,
since those who put their trust in you will not be disappointed.
And now we put our whole heart into following you,
into fearing you and seeking your face once more.
Do not disappoint us;
treat us gently, as you yourself are gentle
and very merciful.
Grant us deliverance worthy of your wonderful deeds,
let your name win glory, Lord.
(Daniel 3:25-43)
How does one progress in hope?
- Reinforce the foundations, the motives the reasons. Meditate on God's power, his goodness and glorious promises.
- Effort: be on guard against presumption or despair.
- Voluntary detachment, daily renunciation, self-denial.
- Filial confidence in God: he didn't even spare his own Son (Romans 8:32-34)
- Implore the gift of final perseverance, with the help of the our Blessed Mother.
How does hope make us holy?
- On one hand, it draws us to God and on the other, detaches us from pride, power & wealth, and pleasure.
- It makes our prayer efficacious (cf Mark 2:1-12--the paralytic lowered from the roof; Matthew 9:29--the blind man of Jericho; Matthew 15:28--the Cananean woman).
- We honour God when we confide in his wisdom, goodness, power, and faithfulness.
- It is a principle of fruitful activitiy:
- It begets holy desires.
- It increases our energies.
- It infuses courage and endurance.
18 Existimo enim quod non sunt condignae passiones huius temporis ad futuram gloriam,
quae revelanda est in nobis.
19 Nam exspectatio creaturae revelationem filiorum Dei exspectat;
20 vanitati enim creatura subiecta est, non volens sed propter eum, qui subiecit, in spem,
21 quia et ipsa creatura liberabitur a servitute corruptionis in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei.
22 Scimus enim quod omnis creatura congemiscit et comparturit usque adhuc;
23 non solum autem, sed et nos ipsi primitias Spiritus habentes,
et ipsi intra nos gemimus adoptionem filiorum exspectantes, redemptionem corporis nostri.
24 Spe enim salvi facti sumus;
spes autem, quae videtur, non est spes;
nam, quod videt, quis sperat?
25 Si autem, quod non videmus, speramus, per patientiam exspectamus.
18* I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19* For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God;
20* for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will
but by the will of him who subjected it in hope;
21* because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay
and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22* We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now;
23* and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit,
groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24* For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.
For who hopes for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
(Romans 5:18-20)
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