Hope

Hope is the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is not merely wishful thinking; it is much more than that. Hope is knowing and strongly believing that though one is in a desperate situation, things will improve. If anything gets accomplished, it is through hope. When we support freedom and justice, we send out ripples of hope. Hope is very hard to kill, and even when it dies, like Christ, it has a way of coming back to life. If we didn't have hope that we would succeed, why bother trying? The faith and optimism of hope has helped individuals gather enough courage to get through the day throughout history. Paul wrote in several places about what hope leads to or makes: patience, courage, and joy. Hope makes us stable and we are saved in hope. It is one of the three things which last: faith, hope, and love.

Hope remains strong on the list of human needs. It is like a single candle in a dark hallway, it gives off just enough light to continue on and find the way out of the darkness. This light of hope burns so strongly in the hearts of some that it is all they need to keep on living. Hope is not resignation; it is motivation and the foundation to build one's life upon. As Catholics we live in the faith, hope and expectation that one day we will share with Christ in perpetual life. We are an Easter people and every day we celebrate the Resurrection and look forward in hope to the time when we too will be with Christ in his eternal banquet.

"There is surely a future hope for you and your hope will not be cut off." Proverbs 23:18 "So that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:7 "Hope is not resignation; it is a commitment to continue to struggle." Oscar Romero "Once you choose hope, everything is possible." Christopher Reeve "He who has never hoped can never despair." George Bernard Shaw "If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today, I still have a dream." Martin Luther King Jnr "The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin "Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory." Norman Vincent Peale "He who does not hope to win has already lost." Jose Joaquin Olmedo "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." Martin Luther King "Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them." Vincent McNabb "When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time." Author Unknown "If you knew that hope and despair were paths to the same destination, which would you choose?" Robert Brault "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." Anne Lamott "All it takes is one bloom of hope to make a spiritual garden." Terri Guillemets "The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveller than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination." Marian Zimmer Bradley