Hope, expectation
See also: Faith, conviction, Love, Charity, To Love, Virtues.
See also the antonym: Despair, Suicide.
"To love is to know how to hope and To Believe beyond all measure and all reality that could deny faith and hope. Eh Good, for these reasons, I tell you to know how to hope and To Believe despite all contrary reality. Do you understand me? I say: know how to hope and To Believe despite all contrary reality."(Jesus to Martha and Mary Magdalene, about Lazarus dying).[1]
In The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me[edit | edit source]
- But his mercy did not wait for you to cry for pity. It anticipated your desire and sent you Mercy to say: “Hope. I tell you: God forgives you. Come to the Lord.”[2]
- Joachim, the future father of the Virgin Mary, to his Wife Anne who is sterile: "We must still hope. God can do all. As long as one is alive, the miracle can happen, especially when one loves Him and loves each other.”[3]
- Mary to Zechariah who is mute because he doubted the future birth of his son John the Baptist: “The Lord will give you complete joy. Believe in Him fully, hope infinitely, love perfectly. The Most High will answer you beyond all that you can hope for. He wants this total faith to wash you from your past lack of faith. Say in your heart, with me: 'I believe.' Repeat it with every heartbeat. The treasures of God open for those who believe in Him and in His mighty goodness.”[4]
- (Mary): My children, you must hope, pray and forgive to obtain from God that He intervene in our Confession. You also have to live your passion. Your sins deserved it. I teach you how to overcome it and turn it into joy. Hope without measure, pray without losing confidence, forgive to be forgiven. My children, God's forgiveness will be the Peace you aspire to.[5]
- (...) to teach you all the great virtue which, like the arms of a yoke, supports Faith and Charity. Bridge of the Soul, so that it may release its flight into the Light, and it is placed in the middle between the indispensable Faith and the very perfect Charity, because without Hope there can be no Faith, and without hope Charity dies. (Jesus details this in [6]).
- (...) Faith presupposes hope full of certainty. How can one To Believe to God if one does not hope in His Goodness? How to find support in life if one does not hope for eternity? How to persevere in justice if one is not animated by the hope that each of our good Actions is seen by God and that we will receive a reward from Him?
Likewise, how can Charity live if there is no hope in us? Hope precedes Charity and prepares it. For a man needs to hope to be able to love. The desperate no longer love.
Here is the ladder made of rails and uprights: Faith is the rails, Hope the uprights; on top is Charity towards which we climb by means of the other two. Man hopes to To Believe, he believes to love.[7]
In Fundamental Christian Texts[edit | edit source]
Catechism of the Catholic Church[edit | edit source]
- There are three Theological Virtues: faith, hope and charity (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:13).
- The Theological Virtues found, animate, and characterize the moral actions of the Christian. They inform and vivify all Moral Virtues. They are infused by God in the Soul of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and deserving eternal life. They are the guarantee of the Presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being.[8]
- Virtue of Faith: CEC 1814 to 1816.[9]
- Virtue of Hope: CEC 1817 to 1821.[10]
- Virtue of Charity: CEC 1822 to 1829.[11]