Christian hope is hope for the coming of the Lord!

Each of uslive in anticipation of something. Each of us is counting on something. What is it that we hope for? This question is very important, because each of us in a sense is what we live. The Lord Jesus says: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be (Mt 6:21). And so man is here and now, but he waits and lives what is to come, he lives leaning into the future. Lack of hope leads to despair, and despair is actually death. Because if nothing makes sense, then the whole life has no meaning, and that means – you have to end life. It is worth remembering that taking away hope from man is Satan's most important goal

We all live with some hope, and the value of our lives depends on the hope we live. What is our hope? For what are we hoping? In the Bible we read: Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord (Jas 5:7), theprophet Isaiah says to the fearful of heart: Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God, … he comes to save you (Is 35:4). Christian hope is hope for the coming of the Lord! It is very important for us to realize that the Lord will come! This is what Advent, the first season of the ecclesial year, draws our attention to. Our faith is by its nature Advent, that is, it is the expectation of the Lord's coming. Therefore, we cannot live as if the most important thing is what we gain here on earth. However, it seems that many of us live this way.

But we must know that He is already among us! This is another truth that we should remember all the more. It is a presence in a mysterious dimension. Instead, he will have to take over the world in all dimensions. That is why we wait eagerly for him to come, for he does not yet reign in its fullness. This situation often becomes the cause of many human complaints and grievances against God: "Why is the world so cruel, why does God not destroy evil...?!".

In the prophet Isaiah we read: Here is your God, he comes with vindication; With divine recompense he comes to save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf be opened; (Is 35:4-5). What is the reason for people's grievances against God is noticed by Him and is part of the program of healing the world. But why is it not yet cured? Because it requires the transformation of the entire world. And that is what we expect.

The coming of the Lord means the arrival of a new reality completely unknown to us. A common mistake of our thinking is that we form our hope on the basis of ideas arising from our ambitions, according to temporal experience, on the models taken from this world. Indeed, we want paradise on earth. However, attempts to implement such visions have always led to tragedy. In the Bible, the model for this endeavor is the Tower of Babel. However, history repeats itself in various forms. In our recent history, such an attempt has been communism, the effects of which we still feel on ourselves. It was an attempt to create a paradise on earth, and as a result it brought unimaginable tragedies.

Scripture gives us a quite different perspective. It is not we who will create paradise on earth by our genius, but the Lord will come and heal us, because we are all wounded, we are all stigmatized by sin, and therefore we cannot afford to build lasting happiness on our own. Despite this, we are constantly trying to do this by building the perfect model. But social justice cannot be achieved except by healing the heart of every human being. It cannot be done from the outside, by force, because every man is free. Only God is good, and only He can give us true good. Our ideas about the good can be deceptive.

The judgment of the world and of Satan took place on the cross. On the eve of His passion and death, the Lord Jesus said: “Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:31-32)

God's plans and thoughts are completely beyond our imagination. And this is why his will can sometimes seem completely incomprehensible or even cruel to us. Hence, our faith requires a constant transcendence of ourselves, it requires a hope greater than our imagination. Therefore, we must constantly treat our lives as a school, a school of the Lord's service – as St. Benedict calls it – in which we learn to recognize God in his action. Our primary effort should be to purify our hearts, that is, to create the conditions for God to speak to us. This is what the Lord Jesus is recommended to focus on in the Gospel.

A special school of life for our heart is the Eucharist. It teaches us an attitude of gratitude and self-sacrificing love. It is food for eternal life! In it we encounter the mystery of our being forever, a mystery that completely surpasses us! In it we learn true hope, an attitude of openness to a gift that is greater than we can imagine. God gives Himself to us. He does not give this or that gift, the fulfillment of our wishes, but He Himself becomes a gift. However, such a gift demands the same response from us. By giving this answer, we enter eternity. This is our Christian hope—hope for eternity, not for short-term prosperity or contentment. This hope is not a gift, but a gift that we ourselves must accept and take with all commitment.

Until Tomorrow

fr. george