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Posts Tagged ‘Hope’

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“Feeling that I am a son of God fills me with real hope”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2012/01/06 at 9:11 AM

Perhaps there is no greater tragedy for man than the sense of disillusionment he suffers when he has corrupted or falsified his hope, by placing it in something other than the one Love which satisfies without ever satiating. (Friends of God, 208)

If we transform our temporal projects into ends in themselves and blot out from our horizon our eternal dwelling place and the end for which we have been created, which is to love and praise the Lord and then to possess him for ever in Heaven, then our most brilliant endeavors turn traitor, and can even become a means of degrading our fellow creatures. Remember that sincere and well‑known exclamation of St Augustine, who had such bitter experience when God was unknown to him and he was seeking happiness outside God: ‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you!’[1]…

In my case, and I wish the same to happen to you, the certainty I derive from feeling — from knowing — that I am a son of God fills me with real hope which, being a supernatural virtue, adapts to our nature when it is infused in us, and so is also a very human virtue. I am happy because I am certain we will attain Heaven if we remain faithful to the end; I rejoice in the thought of the bliss that will be ours, because my God is good and his mercy infinite. [2] This conviction spurs me on to grasp that only those things that bear the imprint of God can display the indelible sign of eternity and have lasting value. Therefore, far from separating me from the things of this earth, hope draws me closer to these realities in a new way, a Christian way, which seeks to discover in everything the relation between our fallen nature and God, our Creator and Redeemer. (Friends of God, 208)

[1] St Augustine, Confessions, 1,1,1 (PL 32,661)
[2] Ps 105:1

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“What should a Christian hope for?”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2012/01/06 at 9:11 AM

Faced by all those men without faith, without hope; by minds desperately near the borders of anguish, seeking for a meaning in their life, you found your purpose: Him! This discovery will permanently inject a new happiness into your existence, it will transform you, and present you with an immense daily hoard of beautiful things of which you were unaware, and which show you the joyful expanse of that broad path that leads you to God. (Furrow, 83)

Perhaps some of you are wondering, ‘What should a Christian hope for?’ After all, the world has many good things to offer that attract our hearts, which crave happiness and anxiously run in search of love. Besides we want to sow peace and joy at every turn. We are not content to achieve prosperity just for ourselves. We want to make everyone around us happy as well.

Some people, alas, whose aims are worthy but limited and their ideals only perishable and fleeting, forget that Christians have to aspire to the highest peaks of all, to the infinite. Our aim is the very Love of God, to enjoy that Love fully, with a joy that never ends. We have seen in so many ways that things here below have to come to an end for all of us, when this world ends; and even sooner, for each individual, when he dies, for we cannot take wealth and prestige with us to the grave. That is why, buoyed up by hope, we raise our hearts to God himself and have learned to pray, , I have placed my hope in you, O Lord: may your hand guide me now and at every moment, for ever and ever. [1](Friends of God, 209)

[1] Ps 30:2

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Real Hope

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/11/04 at 1:11 AM
 Excerpt from ‘The Forty Days’ Teaching by Cardinal John Henry Newman in PRAYERS, VERSES AND DEVOTIONS. Ignatius Press.

God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness.  He looks upon me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can do best, be what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it to me.

God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not . . . God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness. . . . We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.

I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. . . . I am necessary for His purpose. . . . I am a link in a chain . . . of connections between persons.

I will trust Him. Whatever, whenever I am, I can never be thrown away. . . . He knows what He is about.

How constant is He in His affection! “I will never leave thee or forsake thee.”  He did not forsake me in my sin. . . . He found me and regained me. . . . He resolved to restore me, in spite of myself. . . . What does He ask of me, but that, as He has loved me with an everlasting love, so I should love Him in such poor measures as I can show.


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“Off to a fresh start!”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2011/09/07 at 1:11 AM
We are continually experiencing our personal inadequacies. Moreover, there are times when it seems as if all our failings come together, as if wanting to show themselves more clearly, to make us realize just how little we are worth. When that happens, what are we to do?

Hope in the Lord.1  Live by hope, full of faith and love, the Church says to us. Be of good heart.2  What does it matter that we are made of clay, if all our hope is placed in God? And if at a certain moment you should fall or suffer some setback (not that it has to happen), all you have to do is to apply the remedy, just as, in the normal course of events, you would do for the sake of your bodily health. And then: off to a fresh start!…

When we are faced with weaknesses and sins, with our mistakes even though, by God’s grace, they be of little account — let us turn to God our Father in prayer and say to him, ‘Lord, here I am in my wretchedness and frailty, a broken vessel of clay. Bind me together again, Lord, and then, helped by my sorrow and by your forgiveness, I shall be stronger and more attractive than before!’ What a consoling prayer, which we can say every time something fractures this miserable clay of which we are made. (Friends of God, 94-95)

[1] Ps 26:14
[2] ibid