The virtue of hope is a gift from God that gives Catholics joy, confident that their all-knowing and merciful God has promised eternal life with Him in Heaven for them and their loved ones.
Along with faith and love, hope is one of the theological virtues. These gifts from God are infused into the soul at Baptism and lead the faithful toward God and the happiness of Heaven.
Assured but not certain, Catholics live with a firm desire and unwavering trust that what Jesus promised will be fulfilled one day and that any suffering in this life will be overcome with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Symbolized by an anchor, hope allows man to know that by trusting God something good is possible, even in times of great difficulty.
Sins against the virtue of hope include carelessly presuming that God will save us even without our consent or our cooperation, or despairing that God will not help us or that we are not worthy of his mercy.
The knowledge that God is in charge:
The ability to trust God:
But when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, He saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
Titus 3: 4-7
Rooted in a relationship with God:
Trusting in the promise of a safe landing:
An anchor in the beatitude God gives:
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.” “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.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1817
Encouragement from Sacred Scripture:
Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever He is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect.
Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 30 November 2007
Reminding us of what is truly important:
The Church provides the means to live in hope:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
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