Supernatural Hope

Hope Flows from Practising Faith and Love

Dostoevsky wrote, “To live without hope is to cease to live.” Every person born into this world needs the virtue of hope in order to be creative and look to the future with a positive spirit. But hope on a natural level isn’t sufficient to sustain our enthusiasm in the face of obstacles, pain, suffering, failure, or betrayal. We need more than the natural virtues to sustain us when nature lets us down especially in the face of suffering and death. Hope flows from practising faith and love. But natural faith, hope and love won’t sustain our relationships when we’re hurt or betrayed. On a natural level hope is simply wishful thinking and can’t assure us of a particular outcome. We need a hope that gives us assurance regarding the future. This is where God comes to our rescue by giving us the capacity in Baptism to receive and exercise supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love whose practice help us rise up from the limitations of our natural faith, hope, and love. In supernatural Faith God unites us with Himself. God fills us with His Spirit in supernatural Love. In supernatural Hope God motivates us to overcome all the obstacles as we strive for perfection. Concerning supernatural hope, the inspired St. Paul noted that, “this hope will not leave us disappointed, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). The absence or the non-exercise of any of these supernatural virtues spells failure in our relationship with one another and with God.

Hope Is Faith and Love in Action Virtue

The Catholic Church defines virtue as, “A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of him/herself. The virtuous person … pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God” (CCC 1803). Good habits keep us balanced so that we can be at our best by resisting deficiency or excessiveness in meeting our physical and spiritual needs. Faith, hope, and charity are good habits because they come from God and in exercising them, we’re doing God’s will. It takes the practice of virtues to overcome and eliminate vices. Virtues provide the incentive to do good works. Jesus reminds us that “our commitment to Him is proved by works, not merely words” (Ignatius Study Bible, Jn 14:15). St. Augustine said that supernatural hope is the greatest of the three divine virtues because it’s the result of exercising in our life the capacity for supernatural faith and love which God gave us in Baptism. It’s through exercising these virtues, St. Paul reminds us, that, “In hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24). Pope Benedict XVI points out that, “Hope, in fact, is a key word in Biblical faith—so much so that in several passages the words “faith” and “hope” seem interchangeable. Thus the Letter to the Hebrews closely links the “fullness of faith” (10:22) to the confession of our hope without wavering” (10:20) (Spe Salvi 2). Faith, hope and Love are inseparable, always interacting with one another. To have supernatural faith is to have supernatural love and to have supernatural love is to have supernatural hope.

Supernatural Hope Reigns

Easter is a season of hopefulness. Jesus took on the hopelessness and darkness of evil, suffering, and death on His shoulders as they nailed Him to a cross. But in His Resurrection Jesus conquered these enemies of life and replaced fear of them by supernatural hope in Him through having supernatural faith in Him. That’s why Jesus’ followers are an Easter People; a people assured of a bright future in which to hope knowing they have a placed reserved for them in Heaven. A hopeless Christian is a contradiction in terms. The nature of a Christian is to be full of hope even in the most appalling situations. Jesus died on the cross full of hope because of His faith in His Father.

Hope Springs Eternal

The Apostle Philip displayed this supernatural hope when, despite persecution, he brought the Good News of Jesus to Samaria (Acts 8:4ff). Then we see Peter and John administering the Sacrament of Confirmation to those baptized by Philip giving them the supernatural hope of salvation. They “prayed, that they might receive the Holy Spirit…. and upon arriving laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:15, 17). Hope springs eternal so, “The rejoicing in the town rose to fever pitch” (Acts 8:8). Their joy came from the supernatural faith they received upon hearing Jesus’ Good News and receiving God’s love through the Holy Spirit giving them the hope of rising from and conquering wages of sin, namely suffering and death, (Rom 6:23). The Apostles’ hope, sprung from the faith God gave them that encouraged them to preach and teach Jesus’ Good News, fearless of persecution. Hope always encourages endurance because faith in God always says that for the faithful person the best is still ahead. Napoleon is said to have once remarked that, “Courage is like love; it must have hope for its nourishment.” Supernatural hope nourishes courage because it is based on faith in God “for whom nothing is impossible” (Lk 1:37).

Hope Brings Joy

St. Peter urges us to, “Venerate the Lord, that is Christ, in your hearts. Should anyone ask you the reason for this hope of yours, be ever ready to reply ….” (1 Pt 3:15). Christian hope is well expressed by the Psalmist: “Shout joyfully to God all the earth. Sing praise to the glory of His Name … Come and see the works of God, His tremendous deeds among the children of Adam” (Ps 66:4-5). God’s tremendous deed was to redeem us from our sinfulness which He completed in Jesus’ Resurrection. That’s our reason to shout joyfully, even in the face of death itself. That’s why we can be optimistic, which means expecting the best of all worlds. Helen Keller wrote that, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” A renaissance writer, Francois Rabelais, recognized the source of hope when he confessed, “I place no hope in my strength; nor in my works: but all my confidence is in my God my protector, who never abandons those who put all their hope and thought in Him.”

Sacraments of Hope

Jesus is our Hope-Giver. We need Him not only with us but in us. Jesus joined love and obedience when He said: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15). To love Jesus is to obey Him and to obey Him is to have faith in Him. The heart-felt obedience of Jesus’ commandments signifies His Spirit’s presence guiding us in love of Him. To shore up our weaknesses, fickleness, and sinfulness Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church in calling people to Baptism and Confirmation and thus receiving the power to practice the supernatural faith, hope and love in order to be “perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (My 5:48). Every Church member receives the Spirit of adoption in Baptism and His gifts to be Jesus’ public witnesses in Confirmation. The Holy Spirit is present in Jesus’ Church and in each of her members so that the “universal Church and individual Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 797). The spiritual gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, prayerfulness, counsel, perseverance, and fear of the Lord enable Christians to be signs of supernatural hope that is based on God’s fidelity to His promises. Therefore, we must constantly ask the Holy Spirit to help us in this mission of bringing this divinely created hope to a world that at best can only promote wishful thinking.

Exercising the Capacity for Hope

Catholics are so blessed to have the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation wherein God has given them the capacity to exercise supernatural faith, hope, and love. Of course, it is one thing to have the capacity for something and quite another to exercise that capacity. The Church visibly expresses and exercises this capacity in her liturgy. Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven deprived the Church of His physical presence but it did not remove His spiritual presence from within her. She teaches us that Jesus is always present in her, especially in the Liturgy, where “He ministers through His priests, speaks through the Holy Scriptures, and sanctifies us through the Sacraments” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Jn 14:18; CCC 788, 1380). When we believe in Jesus’ presence in His Church, and participate in her Sacraments, especially in the Holy Mass, we’re exercising supernatural hope because in it we unite with Jesus worshipping His Father and our Father through the Holy Spirit. Every Holy Mass is a visible expression of the supernatural hope God gives us. This we’re able to say with confidence that the best is still ahead. (fr sean)

Jesus’ Church Brings Hope

“Your Church throughout the world sings You a new song, announcing Your wonders to all. Through a virgin You brought forth a new birth in our world; through Your miracles, a new power; through Your suffering, a new patience; in Your Resurrection, a new hope, and in Your Ascension, a new majesty.” (Liturgy of the Hours).