I hope you all had a holy and happy Easter, sharing your joy in the Resurrection with the ones you love.
This Easter season, I have been reflecting on the virtue of hope, as we celebrate the Jubilee Year of Hope declared by Pope Francis.
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of hope and also on what it is that we hope for.
Although everyone is different, it seems that there are certain hopes we have in common.
We all hope for love and happiness in our lives and in our families; we hope for work that will sustain our families; we hope that our loved ones will be kept free from evil.
We also hope that our children will grow to know and love Jesus and find love and happiness in their lives. We hope that our elders will grow old with grace and good health and that eventually they will have a good and holy death and go to heaven.
We hope for peace in the world and in our neighborhoods and communities.
These hopes form the substance of people’s everyday prayers, worries, and dreams. To realize these hopes, people will often make sacrifices and put off satisfying their own immediate needs and wants.
But these daily hopes are not enough. Our hearts need a greater hope, we need God.
The great hope that we all share is to know that our lives matter, that we make a difference, that there is a reason and purpose for our lives, and that our sufferings and hardships are not all for nothing.
We all hope for a love that is pure and true, a love that transcends this mortal life, a love that will last forever. And we all hope that death is not the end, that this earthly life is not all there is.
These are hopes that can be found in every human heart, in every time and place.
Easter is God’s answer to everything that we hope for.
In Jesus, the living God comes to reveal himself in human flesh, he comes to show us his face and open his heart for us.
Jesus reveals that we are loved and that our lives have a purpose in God’s plan.
He gives a path to walk and promises that if we walk this path with him, if we live by his teaching and example, then we will find happiness and love in this life and live with him forever in his kingdom, in a love that never ends!
This is the beautiful hope that we have as Catholics. It is a hope born out of the blood that Jesus shed for us on the cross.
This Year of Hope invites us, once again, to establish our lives on the strong foundation of this hope that we have in Jesus, the hope of salvation, the hope of glory, the hope of eternal life.
By this hope we know that this world is not our home, that we are just passing through our way to a better country, a heavenly one.
By this hope we know that whatever happens in our lives, whatever sufferings we’re asked to bear, whatever dark valleys we’re called to walk, Jesus goes with us, and he will give us the strength we need.
Hope means trusting in God’s plan, no matter where he leads us. In sickness and health, in tragedy and sorrow, in joy and good fortune.
One of the saints said, “I am definitely loved and whatever happens to me, I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.”
Our life is good, too. And we know that our life is bound for glory.
Jesus will love us until the end. And we know that when our earthly life is over, the God who is Love will be waiting to welcome us.
Jesus left us the gift of the Eucharist as a pledge of the glory to come.
The apostles and early Church Fathers used to call the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality, the antidote of death, and the food that makes us live forever in Jesus Christ.”
In this year of hope, I pray that all of us in the Church will recover that same awareness that by sharing in his body and blood we will live forever, and he will raise us up on the last day.
Pray for me and I will pray for you.
And during this Easter season in the Year of Hope, let us ask holy Mary, the Mother of Hope, to keep us always close to her Son, knowing that he is leading us to the hope that awaits us in heaven.
