Hope Does Not Disappoint

(Also posted over at Peguy)

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."  -- Romans 5:5

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the annual Spiritual Exercises of the Midwest Region of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation.  This year's theme was Hope Does Not Disappoint (drawn from Romans 5:5) and will be carried through the fraternity's life during this year.  For a nice reflection that also gives a good summary of Fr. Carron's lesson, take a look at this post over at Clairity's Place.

For my own reflection, I thought I would post some half-developed thoughts on the virtue of hope that stem from a conversation that I had with another member of the Chicago CL community while we were driving home from the Spiritual Exercises.

"Uphold me according to thy promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!" -- Psalm 119:116

The three theological virtues are faith, hope and love.   The Catechism (#1817) defines hope as the "theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit."  In law school, I saw this embodied in a very personal way, through a group of religious brothers that I met known as the Brotherhood of Hope.  As they describe their charism:   "Jesus, the Hope of the world, is the one who empowers us to proclaim him, witness to him, and call others to place their hope in him."  Fr. Carron made a similar point when he reminded us that hope is not to await something from God, but to await God Himself.

Hope tends to be a forgotten virtue.  Faith is talked about a lot, sometimes with admiration and other times derision.  Love is praised by all, although often only a sentimental version of it.  But hope?  Do we often find ourselves speaking of hope?

One of the graces CL has played in my life to date has been to re-emphasize for me the meaning and importance of koinonia in the Christian life.  I have come to realize that, behind the surface whenever I complain about this or that in the Church today, really is a desire for a concrete experience of this communion.  I think, if tested, this reality rests behind the common complaints of others, too.

And this is what led us to talking about hope.  We began to ponder whether the fostering of hope is more dependent on a lived experience of koinonia than the other theological virtues.  I don't know what the theologians would say in response to this question.   I don't know where to begin with my own question other than to say that, at least for my own experience, it is hope that I have the most difficulty with apart from the experience of communio, and of Him in that communio.  Is it that, without a concrete experience of communio, I tend to impatience and thus to doubtfulness?  St. Paschasius Radbertus writes of hope in De fide, spe et caritate:

"Christ is held by the hand of hope.  We hold him and are held.  But it is a greater good that we are held by Christ than that we hold him.  For we can hold him only so long as we are held by him."

Is it that I experience this particular form of Christ's Presence most clearly within a lived experience of koinonia -- or to paraphrase Fr. Giussani from Why the Church?, when I have a concrete experience of being possessed by other Christians because they possess Christ and life, and they are possessed by him?    

Thoughts?

"No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to  God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."  -- Romans 4:20-21