To grow joy in your heart, nurture hope

+JMJ+

 



Several weeks ago during prayer ministry, I asked for the people praying for me to pray for an increase in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity in my heart, especially the virtue of hope.  It was something a bit more specific than other times where I did not know what to ask for, except to ask for healing.  I trusted that God answered those prayers for healing even if it did not seem evident right away.  Looking back over the months, it is true that much healing has occurred.

When  asking specifically for the virtue of hope, He started answering me amost right away.  It's hard to put into words all that He is teaching me, but I want to share just a little of how He is working in my heart.  I am thankful for the grace of asking for hope because it is during Advent specifically that this virtue is nurtured.  We wait in expectant hope for the celebration of His birth and to receive Christ in His Glory when He comes at the end of time.  The gift the Holy Spirit gave during that prayer ministry over me was to open in a new way my ears, eyes, and heart to Him, so He could teach me about hope.  He is shepherding me ever closer to His Heart.  Even in the darkness I know His light is here, and He is teaching me to listen to His voice.  His voice speaks to me through prayer, reading His Word, Holy Mass (both in prayer and in the priest's words), through spiritual reading, and in people and circumstances I encounter.

Over the past weeks, much violence has occurred in our own community, in our nation, and the world.  Along with that, there have been deep disappointments in my own life this past week.  It is tempting to despair in the face of such evil and in the face of our own suffering and trials.  But with Christ in us, we do not despair; we hope in Him; we know His presence; we trust His great love for us and intimate knowledge of our suffering.  We know His presence in the hearts of those who gave their lives in order to save others.  He is God with us, Emmanuel.  

Father Andrew has a beautiful homily at Catholic Vision on our need for joy in the midst of suffering and how Mary, coming as Our Lady of Guadalupe, teaches us.  I have prayed for an increase of joy before, but it seems as though abiding joy is fleeting in my heart, even absent such suffering.  Now I somewhat understand why.  Perhaps my desire for hope is a fruit of praying for joy?  Being an engineer, I understand that in order to do calculus, you must first know easier forms of math.  Not to say that the virtue of hope is easier than joy, but I am learning that hope is necessary for joy.  In nurturing hope, I trust God will give me joy.

How do I nurture hope?  In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI tells us, "A first essential setting for learning hope is prayer."  He goes on to say the following:

Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. “By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]”. Augustine refers to Saint Paul, who speaks of himself as straining forward to the things that are to come (cf. Phil 3:13). He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart. “Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God's tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined.

A great resource on prayer is The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 4, Christian Prayer, particularly Section 1, Chapter 3: The Life of Prayer (CCC 2697-2758).  "We cannot pray at all times if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it" (CCC 2697). 

As we pray, we realize that this hope is not meant for us alone.  Pope Benedict XVI also tells us,

When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well.

Like Mary, our hope is to be shared, to bring the light we have been given to others.  And so, it is through prayer that God is nurturing hope in my heart.  By His grace, the hope He gives me, I share with others through action.  And it is with expectant hope, I await His abiding joy.

Mary, Mother of Hope, Bearer of Hope, pray for us!