The Pontiff, when mentioning this virtue, stated that we often sin against it, when bad nostalgia and melancholy arise, when we allow ourselves to be overcome by our sins, forgetting the mercy of God. When the love of God stops being an eternal fire and we lack the courage to make decisions that commit us for life. The Pope exalted that today’s world has such a need for this Christian virtue, and for so much patience, a virtue that goes hand in hand with hope.
Patricia Ynestroza-Vatican City
This morning in his 18th catechism, Pope Francis dedicated it to the virtue of hope. “What will be of me? What is the destination of the trip? What is the destiny of the world? Regarding these questions, the Pope said that if we have a negative answer to these questions it makes us sad, “if there is no meaning in the journey of life, if there is nothing at the beginning or at the end, then we ask ourselves why we should walking: from there arises human desperation, the feeling of uselessness of everything.”
Then, paraphrasing Pope Benedict XVI’s Spe Salvi: “Only when the future is certain as a positive reality, does the present also become bearable,” he stated that, if hope is lacking, “all other virtues run the risk of crumbling and ending in ashes.” If we do not have the certainty of a “reliable tomorrow, a luminous horizon, we would only have to conclude that the virtue of hope is a useless effort.”
Hope: a virtue we often sin against
The Pontiff pointed out that hope is a virtue against which we often sin when bad nostalgia arises, “in our melancholies, when we think that past happiness is buried forever.” Also when we allow ourselves to be overcome by our sins, forgetting “that God is merciful and greater than our hearts. We sin against hope when autumn cancels out spring in us; when the love of God stops being an eternal fire and we lack the courage to make decisions that commit us for life.”
Catechesis of Pope Francis
“Today’s world is so in need of this Christian virtue! Just as you also need patience, a virtue that walks hand in hand with hope. Patient human beings are weavers of good. They stubbornly desire peace, and although some are in a hurry and would like everything and everything now, patience has the capacity to wait. Even when many around him have succumbed to disappointment, he who is buoyed by hope and patient is able to get through the darkest nights.”
Furthermore, the Holy Father deepened, “hope is the virtue of those who have a young heart; and here, age does not count. Because there are also elderly people with eyes full of light, who live a permanent tension towards the future.”
The Christian has hope not of his own merit
Because every Christian believes in the future, “because Christ died and rose again and gave us his Spirit,” said Francis, and takes up the Spe Salvi: “Salvation is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, a reliable hope, thanks to which we can face our present.
Therefore, Francis remembers that “hope is a theological virtue,” because it does not emanate from us, he said, “it is not an obstinacy that we want to convince ourselves of, but it is a gift that comes directly from God.”
Catechesis of Pope Francis
Returning to Saint Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where, Francis said, he presents to them the new logic of the Christian experience: «If Christ was not resurrected, your faith is vain and you continue in your sins. Therefore those who fell asleep in Christ also perished. If only for this life we have placed our hope in Christ, we are the most worthy of compassion of all men!”, it is as if saying, the Pope points out, that “if you believe in the resurrection of Christ, then you know with certainty that there is no defeat or death forever. But if you do not believe in the resurrection of Christ, then everything becomes empty, even the preaching of the Apostles.”
Remembering the solemnity of Our Lady of Luján
In his greetings in Spanish, the Pope recalled that in his homeland, Argentina, the solemnity of Our Lady of Luján is celebrated, and mentioned that her image was present in the Plaza. “Let us pray for Argentina, so that the Lord helps her on her path,” he concluded.
Pope Francis at the General Audience
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