Homily

There is one idea, one thought in particular that always catches my attention whenever this epistle from the letter to the Hebrews is read. That idea is hope. And actually it's not an idea, it's a virtue, one of three theological virtues which include also faith and love. In today's reading St. Paul reminds us that if there is any promise we can trust in, surely it would have to be God's promise because "it is impossible for God to lie, therefore we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to hold fast to the hope that lies before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm which reaches into the interior beyond the veil where Jesus has entered on our behalf. . ."

I think about that anchor of hope for myself and I don't believe it is as sure and firm an anchor as it ought to be. I certainly think there is still plenty of room for me to grow into greater hope. And I realize that it's not just me, the more and more that I think about it. Looking around it's plain to see that we have a huge deficit in our national budget, but perhaps an even greater and more dangerous deficit in the virtue of hope. How so? People certainly have desires and goals and ambitions and things that they would like to see happen and wishes they would like to see fulfilled. If these goals and wishes and desires are for good things, then there is nothing wrong with them but so many of the things people say they hope for are not actually about the virtue of hope.

The Catechism explains that hope is the 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." Hope is not pointing us to greater glory in this life, but instead it points us to the glory of the life that is to come after this earthly life is over. Every human person wants to be happy and hope teaches us that our perfect happiness will never be found in this life because we were born for so much more than just this life. We were born to live eternally in the presence and love of the Lord our God, to be citizens of heaven and heirs to the glory promised to all who accept His gift of divine life. That is the focus of Christian hope. What ever may be going on in our lives right now whether good or bad, hope tells us that we ain't seen nothing yet, for in the end the faithful will receive the greatest good that can ever be given, the greatest joy, the greatest love.

It's not so difficult to see what happens when people lose this kind of hope. When we push Christ aside it is only natural that we will look only to this life and this material world to find the happiness that our hearts so very much desire. We don't have to deny Christ to do that, we can just live as though He is in the closet if we need Him; otherwise we will find our happiness somewhere else. And we don't want to be talking about death, thank you very much, we want to only be talking about life and not in a life that is yet to come, because then that death thing comes up again, no, this life here and now in this material world.

It's not surprising then that you can find, on any given day in the mainstream media, dozens and dozens of articles and videos on how to live longer but how many pieces will you find that explain why you are alive and what is the purpose of your existence in this world? If we don't know why we are here it's even more difficult to consider the time that we, and those we love, will no longer be here. Without hope, what are we left with? It seems to me that more and more, with weaker hope in the promises of Christ, and greater expectations of what life in this world should be for us, it is inevitable that we want to downplay our mortality and hide from the reality of death. Over the years I've been to a number of memorial services and "Celebrations of Life" and what I've always found so disturbingly strange is when, inevitably people are asked to get up and share their thoughts about the departed, so many of them want to tell funny stories. Not remembrances of honor, virtue, love or loyalty—no; funny stories. And people laugh and laugh and I've been at a few of these that reminded me more of amateur comedy night than a funeral. It used to bother me until I realized why it was happening. They are like people whistling in the dark. In the face of death, the best they can do is to joke and make fun and pretend it's all really a light-hearted event. There may be thoughts and words that the departed is now in heaven, in an attempt to comfort mourners, but what it means to be in heaven or how one actually gets there, apart from an automatic delivery system that chucks every soul into paradise once they take their last breath—apart from that brief guarantee let's just roll it up and move along lest we start considering our own mortality—and why would we ever want to do that?

Dear friends, I hope we want to do that, because in doing that we can find our true hope. Yes we may have hopes for ourselves and others in this life, and we may work for and wish for and pray for good things for ourselves and others. We can look for happiness here and now. But we will never know genuine happiness unless it is pointing us toward eternal happiness. We will never avoid discouragement unless we live in hope. We will never love as fully as we are able unless hope eases our fears of giving too much away, and hope is itself a fortifier of faith, for our hope is not in those things that are passing, temporal, temporary and never completely satisfying. Our hope is not in these.

It is so easy to lose focus on this great goal in our daily lives, as so many things are constantly calling for our attention and our care. But even in the midst of all that we ought to keep in mind that we are the people who have the greatest of all hopes, and we ought to pray that this hope enlightens and guides our thoughts, words, and deeds so that we truly live, more and more, in our hope. The rough part of hope is in the dying to get there. Indeed, we may not be dying to get there. But He did. For us. And He waits there for us to share in His glory. Let us keep working to convert all our lesser hopes to point us and carry us always to Him Who alone can convert hope into eternal life.