Homily

In today's epistle, St. Paul is speaking to the Christians of the Church in Rome. Like most people most everywhere in the Roman Empire, life for these people was not easy. In fact it was, as one scholar says, ". . . harsh, brutal and short." There were no hospitals or clinics, no doctors except for the wealthy, no dentists, no orphanages or nursing homes, no welfare, food stamps or social security, no police department, no fire department, no public schools. If you survived the first few years of life you would be lucky to live to be 40 years old. And if you lived in the city of Rome it was even worse. The crowded tenements were fire-traps, the sanitation was terrible and disease spread quickly. On top of that most of the Christians in Rome would likely be slaves or very poor people. So it's a good thing to keep this in mind when we hear St. Paul say, ". . . but we even boast of our afflictions, our sufferings, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." He says that we boast in the hope of the glory of God, and we boast of it even when we suffer the hardships of life. If suffering can lead us to hope, and we can boast about our hope because our hope is in God, then we can even boast of our sufferings.

I was reading a commentary on this epistle and the author writes, "Modern readers may well object that it is by no means clear that the experience of suffering works in this way, and that, in fact, what suffering regularly produces is, not hope, but bitterness and despair." Wow! So I stopped to think about that. I believe the author may have a point about the differences between people back then in Rome and people living in America today. We shop in grocery stores where there are 15 different kinds of dog food, while they could starve to death because they could not afford to buy even the cheapest of grain. If we are injured, we can call 911 and an ambulance can be there in minutes, but in ancient Rome even a simple cut could lead to an infection that could kill you. Modern Americans generally believe that you can become whatever you want to be if you work hard, follow your dream, and seek after your passion. Anyone can be the next American Idol. But 2,000 years ago in Rome people understood that if they were born a slave, they would die as a slave, hopefully not at the hands of their master. So the commentator on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans may be correct. Modern people, or some modern people, don't see hope coming out of suffering.

So, where then is our hope, if we even say that we have hope? The catechism says that hope is a virtue by which we desire and expect from God both eternal life and the grace we need to attain it, not relying on our own strength but on the help of the Holy Spirit. God has placed within every human heart the wish to be happy, which will only be completely fulfilled when we stand in the presence of God for all eternity. This virtue works with the hopes that inspire people to action and purifies them so that they point our lives in the direction of heaven. Hope keeps us from discouragement, it supports us during times when we feel alone or abandoned, it forms our hearts to expect eternal happiness. When we are supported by hope we are kept from selfishness and we find a joy that can only come to us through our charity, our love for God and our neighbor.

I'm thinking there may well be a big difference between the way most ancient Roman Christians saw life in this world, and the way most modern American Catholics see life in this world. We may have very different expectations of the people that St. Paul was writing to. We tend to expect, and perhaps even demand that many of the protections, comforts, opportunities, benefits, services, rights and privileges which St. Paul's congregation could not even begin to imagine, much less have for themselves — we tend to expect that all these things are due to us, owed to us. And please understand I do not suggest that they are not good things, or mostly good things, and I believe they are, or mostly are, things we should desire, and even pray for. But where do we put our hope? In Whom do we hope, in what do we hope?

Critics can say that Paul's Roman Christians only believed in Christ because their lives were so difficult they wanted to believe there was something better waiting for them after death. So it's not surprising they embraced this faith which offered them a suffering, crucified Savior to look to, and a promise of eternal glory after they died. I accept that there is a certain logic to this argument. But it is not St. Paul's viewpoint that people just sit around suffering and wait for death to free them for glory. He writes that hope does not disappoint us because with it comes the love of God that has been poured into our hearts. This hope is an active gift which we ought to use, and it's a gift that is always linked to the love of God, and God's own love for us. Those who live in the virtue of hope do not have to wait until they die before experiencing the benefit of that hope. Hope can and should be changing us for the better even as we live, because it points us to the God Who gives life, and to Christ Who loves mankind.

I need to think about where I am placing my hope. Do I hope in God first and above all other things, and trust in His promises? Or do I save my hope in Him for more desperate times, for the big and most dangerous, for when it seems all is lost, or when I believe I'm at the end of my rope, or the end of my life? Do I place more hope in the things, and the events and the people of this material and passing life in the world than I do hoping in God? Does Christian hope truly lead to the greater love of God and a desire for life with Him, or is it more important and useful if you're a slave or starving or living in great poverty? I need to think more, and again, where I am placing my hope, because that will always show me what I truly believe in, and that will show me the direction I'm heading for in this life. If that's not worth my time and thought and prayer, I don't know what is.