Click here for today’s Scripture readings
Is 2:1-5
Rom 13:11-14
Mt 24:37-44
Advent has always been my favorite season of the liturgical year. Perhaps that is just because it brings back happy memories of Christmas preparations and celebrations. At a deeper level, though, I think it is because Advent is the season that speaks to us in a particular way about the virtue of hope. The Scripture readings for this season are filled with images of hope.
The famous reading from the prophet Isaiah for this first Sunday of Advent is a passage brimming with hope. The prophet is given insight into a future time in which all the nations will stream toward Jerusalem to acknowledge the God of Israel. This universal pilgrimage will enable all people to be instructed in the ways of the Lord. There God will teach them the paths of peace and reconciliation: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” Isaiah’s magnificent vision has been the subject of countless works of art and literature through the centuries, enkindling hope for the day in which God’s reign – the sovereignty of God’s love – will suffuse creation.
Today’s readings from Paul and the Gospel of Matthew are a bit more ominous in tone. They summon us to watchfulness – to be “on the lookout” for the visitations of God in our lives. Paul challenges the Christian community at Rome to live as people of the light. Their daily conduct must reflect their faith in the crucified and risen Christ and their adherence to his gospel. In the gospel, Jesus warns his hearers to be prepared for the day of the coming of the Son of Man. His words summon all of us to live as watchful disciples, attentive to the faithful presence of Jesus in our lives and to the demands of the present moment.
As sobering as the words of Paul and Jesus are, these readings actually offer us a message of hope. The one for whom we are called to be watchful is the one who gave his life for us on the cross. This Jesus, the Son of Man, is the one who is ever faithful to us and who is constantly offering us new life.
What is this virtue of hope all about, anyway? Does it mean living as people who view life through “rose-colored glasses”? Does it entail avoiding the harsher, more painful dimensions of the world and our own personal lives?
Saint Thomas Aquinas offered an incisive description of the virtue of hope. He said that hope means clinging to God as the source of absolute goodness. To hope means to cling to God – to hold on to the hand of God – through thick and thin. We grasp God’s hand because ultimately we believe that the God of Jesus Christ is the God of life – the God whose deepest desire is life for all people.
To live as people of hope, then, is not the same as seeing life through rose-colored glasses. It does not mean overlooking the darkness and ambiguity of life, simply pretending that everything will be fine. The virtue of hope has a certain vulnerability to it; it can encompass moments of great fear and anxiety. When the Holy Spirit gifts us with hope, the Spirit enables us to acknowledge the reality of evil and suffering in the world and in our lives. The Spirit empowers us to grapple honestly with life’s hardships and not to “pretend them away.” The virtue of hope enables us to face reality without either escaping into illusion or sinking into despair.
The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, who as a teenager spent years in a POW camp after World War II, once wrote these words about hope: “We come to know the truth of hope if we are forced to stand our ground against despair. . . . We come to know its power when we realize that it keeps us alive in the midst of death.” Hope is not a passive virtue; it moves us to harness our energies, our gifts and creativity in order to make the best out of the situation in which we find ourselves, all the while believing that Christ is indeed present within us, working in and through us. And when there is nothing more that we can do to change a situation or solve a problem, hope leads us to entrust our lives into the hands of God, with the confidence that God has ways of sustaining us that are beyond our ken.
In this season of Advent, may we pray for a rekindling of the virtue of hope in our lives. Let us cling more closely to God – hold on to the hand of God, who is pure goodness and life.
- Fr. Robin Ryan, CP joined the Passionist community while in college. Since ordination in 1984, Fr. Robin’s ministry has been divided between retreat ministry and teaching theology, along with responsibilities for ministerial formation. Currently he is Vice-Provincial of St. Paul of the Cross Province.
Related articles
- One Last Swim (thepassionists.org)
- Solemnity of Christ the King (thepassionists.org)
- Religious Life Insurance Policy? (thepassionists.org)
Hope is not a pious wish but energy to act in the midst of distress as the author writes here. Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on Hope assures us that we have been “saved in hope.” We have not yet arrived, but have that energy while we keep walking toward the Lord.