Abbé DuHaut
HOPE
All our dogmas are closely connected with one another, and God is the beginning and end, the author and surety of them all. Saint Paul puts faith and hope together when he says, Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for. (Heb. 11:1) He means that just as no building can stand firm without a foundation, so it is impossible for us to have true hope of life eternal without faith. Faith and hope together give birth to charity.
This fact alone should suffice not only to show the immense importance of hope, but also to convince us that the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, are inseparable from one another, and indispensable to all who desire to please God and work out their own salvation.
Hope stands between faith and charity, like the stalk connecting the root and the ripe ear of corn. It is at once the reward of the one, and the source of the other, or, rather, it is true to say that these three virtues are so interlaced that they borrow strength and life from one another. Without hope, faith would be useless, for in Christian hope faith reaches its full development, and together they become the firm foundation of charity; they are the root and sap of the love of God in our hearts, and the stronger they are, the more ardent is the love that they produce.
Where there is no faith, there can be no supernatural hope, and, as Saint Augustine says, if these two theological virtues are absent, it is quite useless to look for the third. How could we possibly hope in God if we had no faith in His existence? Or love Him, unless we knew Him to be supremely worthy of our love, and ready to reward those who honor Him? Faith and hope must lead on to love, and are absolutely necessary to it; we do not love what we cannot hope to obtain, since our natural pride makes us reject what is out of our reach.
We love God because we hope in His goodness, and supernatural hope encourages the soul to regard its salvation as sure, for we are saved by hope. (Rom. 8:24) Saint Augustine says that hope is love expectant, and no better definition can be given of this virtue, which enables us to have a foretaste of Heaven here below if we trust in God’s promises.
Without hope, faith would be useless, for in Christian hope faith reaches its full development.
Hope, then, though inferior to charity, is superior to faith, being more than the germ or origin of future benefits, for it makes us, Hope, in a certain degree, members of Christ here on earth. Faith reveals God to us that we may turn to Him, but hope tends to unite us with Him, and charity actually effects this union, which is the supreme aim of all our Christian life. Without charity, faith and hope would be deprived of their perfection, and would remain incomplete and unsatisfied. Charity is their crown, the full realization of all the desires to which they give rise in our hearts. The heart of man can never find peace unless it rests in God, and it is equally true to say that the other virtues are aimless and restless until they are bound fast to charity.
Every other virtue has to guard against excess; for instance, faith may degenerate into credulity, and hope into presumption, but charity need fear no exaggeration, but may ever increase, since the measure of our love of God is infinity, for He is infinite.
He is eternal, and charity, too, never falls away, although the other virtues necessarily have an end. Faith, after guiding us through the darkness of this life, will no longer be needed when the last great day dawns in all its splendor. Hope, too, will pass away when we cross the threshold of our heavenly home. Both will vanish and give place to light that knows no shadow and happiness without alloy, but charity will remain forever, and will never fall away.
Under the influence of their passions, men often deny everything, even the existence of God and the soul; but still it is impossible for them to stifle all idea of future and eternal happiness, since this belief is not so much an instinct as an indelible mark, set upon His creatures by the hand of God, the Ruler of Heaven, of earth, and of eternity.
There is something within us that makes us turn to God, and aim at infinite happiness, and we cannot resist this tendency any more than the magnetic needle can help pointing to the North. God Himself planted this instinct in our hearts, and it is a sort of confused but assured remembrance of the state from which we have fallen and of that towards which we aim. Lacordaire, the famous Dominican preacher, was right when he said, “Men did not invent God and Heaven. If God did not exist, man would never have thought of Him, but when we aspire to Heaven, it is to our native land.”
Our daily disappointments deaden many feelings within us, yet they are unable to destroy the idea of happiness long lost, but still to be regained, and this really is a proof of its existence, for we should never all agree in imagining a thing that does not and never will exist. All, without exception, ignorant and learned alike, share this feeling, and look forward to a state of happiness greater than that which they now enjoy.
