HOPE

Today open your eyes and your hearts to the Lord’s presence.  Jesus is our Light, our Hope; He is the Way, the Truth & the Life!

People in Old Testament times Hoped for big things: the desert to become fertile, their scattered and divided people to be gathered again,

the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the lame would walk,

the blessings of everlasting peace.

We long for Isaiah’s vision to be fulfilled: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.”  deSales reminds us, “To believe is to be drawn.”  To be drawn ever closer to God, into God’s hands.  Jesus came in the Incarnation, Jesus is present today, and He will return in glory!

“We encounter God only in the now.  In the Eucharist the past & the future are joined to the present moment.”  (Fr. Barry Strong OSFS)

de Sales urges us the Live Jesus, in the present moment.  Our HOPE is nourished in the Eucharist where God becomes one with us.  We are pilgrims on a journey, one that often takes place in darkness.

We pray, “My heart is ready,

O God, my heart is ready,

I will sing, I will sing your praise, Awake, my soul, awake, lyre & harp, I will awake the dawn.” (Psalm 57)

God “asks for your own heart.  Give it such as it is … everything that is remitted into His hands is converted into good.” (deSales, Sermon in a Sentence, p. 103)

Many of us are anxious we need to remember what Jesus and Martha “you are anxious about many things, Mary has chosen the better part.”

Hope is the perfect antidote to Anxiety!  To deal with anxiety we need to:  1. put our mind at rest & be at peace 2. do what we need but do it gently, and 3. trade in Control for Hope.  Remembering that God is with us, what more can we ask for – our Hope is based on our Faith.

Jesus calls you and me to Hope in Him and in His promises!

“In the end, we are really only what we are before almighty God.” (deSales)

Teilhard de Chardin prayed, “Above all, trust the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay ….  Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling your self in suspense & incomplete.” (Patient Trust)

When God’s love guides our hearts, it guides our actions.  Our Faith and Hope is in a person - Jesus Christ; our Joy is completed only when we are in the “land of the living.”  What we do here is preparation for that time, where Jesus promises us that every tear will be wiped away!  Our HOPE really lies knowing that the God of the Universe waits for our heart!

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.  What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read,

whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.  Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

(Fr. Pedro Arupe, S.J.)

Our life here is a gift, the question for each one of us to answer, is what are we going to do with our gift?  To live your life and give your life to God is HOPE lived here on earth.

May God Be Praised!