Hope

Virtue

Theological virtue

Consequently, the desire for supernatural love is born in our hearts, to be achieved through good works and through God's grace and promises. "I rejoiced at what was said to me: we shall go to the house of the Lord" ( Ps 122 / 121.1). Graces are essential to overcome temptations and obtain the virtues to reach eternal salvation.

Hope is of great help and comfort in the work of our sanctification. It unites us to God, detaching us from the goods of present life, from the esteem of men, from temporal goods, from pleasures. Now hope makes us see these things as miserable in themselves, and fleeting for the duration. They give us very little consolation and with death they vanish altogether, as the soul will bring with it only the good or the evil done. Only God will be all eternally in inexhaustible joy.

Hope and trust are necessary to obtain graces, and many are the Divine Promises: "Verily, verily I say unto you, if anything you ask in my name to the Father, He will grant it" (Jn 16:23). "Ask yourself and you will get. Ask and it will be given to you".
(Mt 7,7).

Hope stimulates us in the desires of paradise, in the ardor of prayer, gives us energy in our work, with the certainty that God is with his faithful servants who trust him. "For what was impossible in the law, that which was weak because of the flesh, was made possible" (Rom 8: 3). If Jesus Christ is with us and we really are with him, what will the devil and the men be able to do? Who is sure of victory is firm on the good path and in the apostolate. "Therefore, with the flanks of your mind succinct, in a state of sobriety, fully hope in the grace that is brought to you in the manifestation of Jesus Christ. Encourage yourself as you are from the spirit of obedience, do not conform more to the unruly passions that before, in your ignorance, dominated you, but, in accordance with the Holy One who called you, you become saints also in all your behavior, for it is written: Be holy because I am holy".
(1 Pet 1: 13-16).

The Lord infuses in the soul that prays the hope that it will grow more and more through ardent prayer and through repeated acts of desire, trust and love for heavenly goods. Our cooperation is an indispensable condition for every virtue: "We are indeed collaborators of God and you are the field of God" (1 Cor 3,9). As the peasant wants to sow, irrigate and cultivate and then give him the living and the grow, so he desires to do for the supernatural life.

Supernatural hope elevates natural hope: "By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace in me was not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:10). St. Paul writes: "and because we are his collaborators, we exhort you not to welcome the grace of God in vain" (2 Cor 6: 1). And to his disciple he writes: "suffer with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ".
(2 Tim 2: 3)

. To work, to suffer, to pray, to fight for heaven and for the growth of virtues brings strength and ardor into hope. We must therefore be convinced that in the work of our sanctification, everything depends on God, but we must work as if everything depended on us alone. God never refuses his grace, so we do not have to worry about our efforts.

We must all do, at least from time to time, acts of hope, especially in temptation and in danger of death. Two dangers we can meet: presumption and despair. The presumption lies in desiring paradise from God and graces without putting our effort. There are those who neglect the commandments, abnegation, prayer, effort, vigilance, yet they believe that God will not lose them! They expose themselves, as Peter occasionally without need, not taking care of the "watch and pray, so as not to fall into temptation: the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26.41); and they end up falling.

Despair, discouragement, despair are opposite illnesses, but they nevertheless leave the means of health and sanctification. Saint Paul was also persuaded that he alone could not resist; but trusting in God's promise and grace, he asked: "Let us give thanks to God: through Jesus Christ our Lord!".
(Rom 7:25).

All God does is for our best. The same physical and moral pain can be changed into precious gems for the heaven.

Let us raise our heart and our gaze to heaven: "So that we also dwell with the spirit in the heavenly abode". On the contrary, to take care "of keeping the heart where true joy resides among the mundane events". It is the thought that makes us persevere, and pray to persevere. There are many attractions of the earth; there are many intrigues and persecutions. But St. Vincent said: "Even if the whole world rises up to lose us, it will not happen unless it pleases the Lord: all our hope is placed in him".