The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Our Lord tells His Apostles: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you."

That which grieves the Apostles the most _ Christ's departure from them _ is what is the best for them. We are often just as the Apostles were. That which we fear, are agitated, or grieve over is often that which is most expedient for us. All too often we pray that God would remove some difficulty from us only to later discover that that was just what we needed. We do not know what is for our own good. We are far too shortsighted to know what the best is for ourselves. Therefore, we must place our hope and confidence in God and expect from Him all that is expedient and salutary for time and eternity.

In this world we are obliged to fight a warfare _ both interior and exterior enemies (the world, the flesh, and the devil). We are week and our enemies are indefatigable. What can bear us up in these struggles and dangers? Nothing but hope. Hope holds us fast, as the anchor does the ship in the storm, that we may not waver; it points to the grace which is strong in the weak, so that we may say with the Apostles: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me." Firmly trusting in assistance from above, we fear no enemy, dread no danger; as children for whose protection the arm of the Father is raised, we feel courage, and fight with perseverance for the salvation of our soul.

Hope continually shows us our destiny and encourages us to disregard temporal things and to long for the eternal. We do not give up our temporal vocation; we fulfill the duties of our state of life with conscientious fidelity and care for the necessaries of life; we have no inordinate love for anything earthly, but share the thoughts of the Apostle, saying; "The time is short; it remaineth, that they also who have wives be as if they had none. And they that weep, as though they wept not, and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not, and they that buy, as though they possessed not, and they that use the world, as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away."

Hope is to man what fuel is to engines. It is the great motive power, it urges and impels him on to put his hand to the work and to dread no exertion to the object of his desire. It was hope that caused Jacob to serve Laban fourteen years, in order to obtain Rachel for a wife. What do not men do in the various avocations of life, i.e. the farmer, the soldier, the merchant, the scholar, to realize their hopes? With this thought in mind, what sacrifice will become too difficult to the Christian when he looks at the immense reward which God holds out to him in heaven!?

Hope makes our sufferings tolerable and even joyful. St. Paul consoles himself and the faithful in tribulations and persecutions with the hope of a reward hereafter. He says: "In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not. Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies." "We know, if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven." It was hope that sustained Job, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God."

"When the wicked man is dead, there shall be no hope any more." (Prov. 11:7) But the just man expects his last hour with consolation and calmness; he even longs for death, and says with the Apostle: "I have a desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ." Hope renders death easy and desirable to him, for he can say to himself: Only a little while, and I shall see my God, the only object of my desire and love; I shall possess Him for ever.

Let us Love Jesus above all things, with a love that is prepared to make any sacrifice and to renounce everything which displeases Him, and do every thing which He enjoins upon us as a duty. Only in such a way will our hope rest on a solid basis; we will obtain what we hope for _ the forgiveness of our sins here, and life everlasting hereafter.

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