Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So I've been thinking about hope a lot lately.
I have a sense that I'm kind of a pessimist.
I don't actually think I am, but when someone asks, "Hey, how's the day going?"
or "How was your weekend? or "How was last summer?" or "How is the school year kicking off?"
I almost always turn to like the negative piece
as opposed to focusing on the positive.
And I'm wondering what that is, like what's that reveal about what's going on inside of old Father Mike?
But I think, when it comes to life, I'm not really pessimistic
in the sense that I don't expect the worst thing to happen.
I like to look forward to the best thing happening like I like to have optimism, I guess.
I would say I'm more of a realist than anything else but here's the interesting thing.
As Christians, we're not called to be pessimists, we're not even called to be optimists.
Yes, in many ways are called to be realists but to really truly live with joy in this world realistically,
we need this thing called the theological virtue of hope.
So it's interesting to note that there's the cardinal virtues,
like the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and courage or fortitude
but then there's also these three, what they call theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.
Past cultures, past philosophies have said, Yeah, of course, justice, temperance, prudence and fortitude—
absolutely those are the virtues and those are things you should strive for,
but it wasn't until essentially Christianity that you have these other virtues.
That's why they call them the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
If you were to ask the ancient Greeks, like you should have hope
or you tell them you should have hope, they would probably look at you and say,
That's ridiculous! Hope is burying your head in the sand.
Hope is being optimistic and not realistic about life.
But Christians, we actually are encouraged and maybe even commanded to have hope.
So what is hope? If it's not optimism, it's definitely not pessimism, and if it has a realism, what is it ultimately?
a) I would say that hope is rooted deeply in faith.
What I mean by that is so we sometimes think of faith, as like I believe a certain set of propositions.
Yeah, that's, I guess, a part of our Faith. That would fall under the umbrella of faith
but even more, faith is when we entrust ourselves to another, right?
So, when it comes to God, faith in God means I've actually entrusted myself to him.
I place my trust in him.
And so faith is not just a set of propositions. It's not just an agreement.
It's a relationship.
It's why I have faith in Jesus, I have faith in God himself
which means I place my trust in him.
Hope is this trust extended into the future.
So as I look forward into life and look forward to the end of life,
I'm not just optimistic about it, like, "Well, things will turn out."
No, not at all.
What I'm doing is I'm living that relationship and saying,
"Looking forward into life, this relationship will be the thing that bears me up."
This relationship with Jesus, his victory, his strength, his power is going to be what is with me
and sustaining me until I don't breathe anymore and even after that.
That's the great thing about hope for Christians
is it doesn't have to be rooted in any way of things going well for us.
There's something bigger than just things going well for us.
It's this relationship of trust in God
because I know that he has not failed me, he is not failing me, and he will never fail me.
That doesn't mean that bad things won't happen to me.
That doesn't mean that I won't have to go through the valley of the shadow of death
but it does mean that as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will be with me at my side
and he will be with you at your side.
The Christian virtue of hope is relational, it's personal.
One last thing.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that hope has kind of two extremes that go wrong.
One is presumption and one is despair.
So the extreme of presumption means that I don't really need God. I can do this on my own.
I don't need God's help.
It also could mean, presumption would mean like, "Listen, he's gonna forgive me no matter what,
so don't even worry about it. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to cooperate with him."
That's presumption. That's not hope
because it's not relational, right?
It's like "I don't need him" or it's "he doesn't need me."
Despair is "I don't have him. He's not there."
That I actually can't entrust myself in my weaknesses to the Lord
because I don't believe that he'll walk with me through this.
Brothers and sisters, please entrust yourself to Jesus. Have faith.
Relational, that trust extended into the future is hope.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Fr. Mike.
God bless.