The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 243: The Virtue of Hope (2024)

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

A desire for the Kingdom of heaven and eternal life is at the heart of the virtue of hope. Fr. Mike breaks down the definition of the theological virtue of hope and explains how it protects us from discouragement and selfishness. By placing our trust in Christ’s promises, we are free to love the people around us and endure all circumstances because we know that God is faithful. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1817-1821. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward a heavenly home. This is day 243, reading paragraphs 1817-1821. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a Foundations

of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications like and subscribe it's great leave a review it's amazing today's day 243 we're reading paragraphs 18 17 to 18 21 we're talking about hope yesterday we talked about faith we talked we had the intro to the three theological

virtues that they are necessary they're also also necessary to be united. They assist us in the moral life in the way that, I don't know, crutches assist us to walk when you got a broken leg or something like that. I don't know, but they are pretty darn important. And so today we're gonna talk about the second theological virtue. Yesterday was faith, today is hope. And what is hope?

It says here in paragraph 1817, hope is the theological 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. That is a mouthful of a definition,

but we are gonna break that open today. In order to do that, let us call upon our heavenly Father, the Son and Holy Spirit as we pray. Father in heaven, we give you praise, we do. We love you and we thank you. We glorify your name this moment and every moment. We ask that you please send upon us, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of your Holy Spirit, the grace of hope. Give us the grace of faith and love, but give us the grace of hope today that we can trust in your promises. By faith we trust in

your presence and by hope we trust in your promises. We ask you to please seal that gift and strengthen that virtue so that we can be yours this day and every day. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 243.

We are reading paragraphs 18-17 to 18-21. Hope. Hope is the theological 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. As Saint Paul said, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. The Holy Spirit he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become

heirs in hope of eternal life. The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man. It takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the kingdom of heaven. It keeps man from discouragement. It sustains him during times of abandonment. It opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness

and led to the happiness that flows from charity. Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people, which has its origin and model, in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. As Hebrews writes, hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations. Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new promised land. They trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of His Passion, God keeps us in the hope that does not disappoint. Hope is the sure and steadfast anchor of the soul that enters where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation. As St. Paul writes, let us put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

It affords us joy even under trial. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation. Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire. We can, therefore, hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love Him and do His will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere to the end and to obtain the joy of heaven as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for all

men to be saved. She longs to be united with Christ her Bridegroom in the glory of heaven. As St. Teresa of Avila prayed, Hope, O my soul, hope, you know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your beloved in a happiness and rapture that can never end.

Alright, there we have it. Day 243, Hope, paragraphs 18-17 to 18-21. Gosh, okay, let's go from the top because as we said, we have a great definition of hope. For many of us, hope is a wish, right? Hope is this kind of optimism, right? That's kind of in so many ways what hope the world offers seems like. It's optimism, things are going to get better. It's some kind of outcome. I hope that things will get better, some kind of outcome. Christian hope is not that. What is it? Let's go. Let's go here, paragraph 18, 17. Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven

and eternal life as our happiness. So let's start right there. Hope, the theological virtue, we already got that. One of the three theological virtues by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness. So hope is linked to desire. And this is very important for us.

You know, the Stoics, Stoicism has kind of made a little resurgence among men my age and younger, I would say like that. They've got a lot of appeal and there's a lot of truth in Stoicism. It's this kind of dispassionate kind of approach towards life, like life is gonna be what it is, therefore just accept it as it comes.

I like that. I think that there's a Christian Stoicism that in a manner of speaking, that can be there, right? There's a sense where, yes, we're called to have that openness to, this is how life is, and I'm gonna accept it and embrace it with Jesus. Stoicism on its own has some good things to offer, but it's not complete, it's not Christianity,

because for many reasons, but here's one reason. Because we're called to have hope. And hope is the theological virtue by which we desire. Right, we want something. Stoicism kind of says, okay, accept life as it comes, but kind of looks down on desire. And yet hope is the virtue by which we desire something. And what we desire here is the kingdom of heaven

and eternal life as our happiness. And that's so critical because we recognize that we actually are called to stir up desire. We talked about this when it comes to, I think, passions or like write those emotions, that wanting something, it's good and Christian to desire. We're called to have hope. We have to desire the right things.

So hope is the virtue by which we desire, right, the right things, which are the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness. You get to foster your desire. In fact, if you find yourself in this moment with this kind of a, maybe laissez faire, right, or a kind of, I'm not really, really interested in heaven.

I'm not really, really interested in the kingdom of God. I'm not really, really interested in heaven. I'm not really, really interested in the kingdom of God. I'm not really, really interested in eternal life. I think this is an incredible opportunity today in this moment to say, God, put that fire in my heart. Give me a fire to desire life with you. Give me that fire to desire eternal life with you. Let that be my happiness. Okay.

That's the first part. Next part, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength This I think is maybe how I most clearly understand the virtue of hope I would say this hope is trust in another extended into the future This is my this is the father Mike Schmidt's definition, right? So hope is if faith is in some ways trust in the presence, right? I trust that you're here and so I surrender my whole self to you because I trust that you're here. I trust that you're good. I trust that you love. Hope

is I trust in your promise and that's what it says here. Placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength. So I always say that hope is trust in another extended into the future, which is another way of saying trust in their promises. If faith is, God, I trust that you're here and I'm yours. Hope could be, maybe you could say, God, I trust that you will be there and I'm yours.

Right, does that make sense? And again, this is just kind of, that's my take on this because what the catechism says here is placing our trust in Christ's promises, which is so powerful. I don't have them yet. I don't have that good thing yet. I don't have eternal life yet.

I don't have the kingdom of heaven yet. But I'm placing my trust in his promise that I will. And it goes on to say, relying not on our own strength. And that's so critical. Again, a lot of us are like, I'm gonna work really, really hard and then things will get better. I'm gonna work really, really hard

and things are gonna be fine. But relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. That's the full definition that paragraph 1870 gives us. That's a long definition, isn't it? One more time for the kids in the back. Hope is the theological virtue, duh, 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. That is the definition of hope as the Church gives it to us today. And we recognize that we confess this, we profess this, and we trust with our whole lives in the promises of Jesus And I just again once again my definition Hope is trust in another extended into the future and this I love paragraph 1818 makes it even bigger though It says the virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness Which God has placed in the heart of every man and that's the thing is like we every person longs to be happy I mean whether the happiness is the happiness of a good steak or happiness of a well-lived life, the happiness of I'm known and loved

or the happiness of I'm known and loved by God. God has placed this aspiration to happiness in the heart of every single one of us. And so what does hope do? It takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the kingdom of heaven. Again, we want to be known by the world.

We want to make an impact. We want to live a life worth living, right? What hope does is it purifies and transforms that desire to be known, that desire to have a life worth living, to be the best version of ourself, and says, actually, my hope is that I'm known by God. My hope is that I live a life worth living for God. My hope is that I'm the best version of myself for God.

Again, that's the thing that hope does. It takes up the hopes that inspire our activities and purifies them so as to order them to the kingdom of heaven. It goes on to say, hope keeps us from discouragement. We're gonna talk more about discouragement when we talk about the sin of pride and despair,

but hope keeps us from discouragement, which is so incredibly important. It goes on to say, it sustains him during times of abandonment. And every single one of us experiences this. Every single one of us experiences what it's like to be abandoned, what it's like to even, even if we're not abandoned, we can feel abandonment.

And sometimes we are abandoned and hope sustains us during those times. And it opens up our heart and expectation of eternal the attitude. And because of this, we're buoyed up by hope and preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from love. And this is, imagine that this is, let's close with this one because I think it's going to be really, really important. It says this buoyed up by hope, right?

So this lifts us up in this tempest of a ocean and a storm here. Buoyed up by hope, we're preserved from selfishness. What does that mean? How does hope preserve us from selfishness? Well, because if God has promised something to me, he promised that he'll be there, he's promised that this battle is not for nothing, that this struggle has a victory at the end, then I don't have to look at myself and feel sorry for myself. It's gonna spare me from selfishness and it's gonna lead me to the happiness that flows from love

because if I have hope, if I trust, okay, God is gonna be there, God is here, I have faith, God is gonna be faithful to his promises, then I'm free to actually love the people around me. I'm free to actually love God back because of the faith that, God, I trust that you're present. Because of the hope, God, I trust in your promises. Then I get to say, okay, God, I love you

and I'm not discouraged, I'm not abandoned. I can continue to walk in hope and I will not be broken. And that is where you're at. We're buoyed up by hope and because we're not broken, we have the freedom from selfishness, freedom to actually love the people around us. And that's, I just think is so, so vastly important for every single one of us. Why?

Because we need in every circumstance to hope in every circumstance we're called. That's what paragraph 1821 says. We are called in every circumstance to hope that the grace of God will preserve us to the end. And so that's my prayer for all of us who are part of this, that by the grace of God, we will persevere to the end. By the virtue of hope, we will persevere to the end. Why? Because we know, we know we have a trust in another

and that other is faithful, that other is true. Trust in another extended into the future. And so my prayer again, is that you will persevere, especially in the midst of discouragement, especially when you feel abandoned, especially when it seems like there's no hope, there's no way out that you will not give up. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.