Spiritual Corner “Hope Confounds Not”

[March 2, 2025] Brothers and sisters in Christ, Pope Francis hopes that we can reach three core targets in our celebration of the Jubilee Year: 1. Strengthen our faith, 2. Convert and repent, and 3. Renew our belief.

In this week’s Spiritual Corner, I invite all of you to carefully study “Hope” in the Catholic Catechism. In retrospection of the past, and learning more about the new, we will be able to well live the Jubilee Year and the forth coming Lent.

Hope is 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. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)” "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:6-7)” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church #1817)

The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1818)

Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations. (Roman 4:18)" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1819)

Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. the beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint." Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf." Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation." It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation." Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1820)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, under the light of Hope, we shall receive the Ash on Wednesday, and begin a journey of renewal and conversion in our belief. Let us pray that through prayer, fasting and good acts of love, we will thus grow further in faith, hope and charity!

Your Pastor,
Fr. Francis Chong