1. Three basic questions figure prominently in the lives of thinking persons. First, there is the knowledge question. In this vast and complex world of ours, with competing philosophies and world views, what can I come to know as truth? Then there is the ethics question. In this vast and complex world of ours, which offers me all sorts of exciting goals and seemingly attractive ways to follow, what is the good that I have been made for? What is the good I ought to seek? Finally, there is what we might call the hope question. In this vast and complex world of ours, where hard things happen in the mischances of life, wherein many wonder if human existence has any ultimate meaning, what can I hope for – in whom can I place my trust? In a certain sense the hope question takes priority. If there is no hope, if life merely runs aimlessly from womb to tomb, why should I seek the truth in knowledge, why should I choose what is truly good and thus live an ethical existence?
2. I would like to focus our attention on our second reading this evening – St. Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians. Paul is most solicitous in prayer for his friends in Thessalonica, and he prays that “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may enlighten the eyes of their hearts that they may know what is the hope that belongs to their call, their vocation in Christ”.
3. The Thessalonians had some questions to ask Paul concerning death and life after death. Paul had taught them that Christ had died, that Christ is risen and that Christ will come again. Perhaps the Thessalonians were of the mind that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent. They were worried therefore about some of their loved ones who had died, and the Lord had not yet returned. “What’s going to happen to our loved ones,” they asked? Paul in his Letter patiently repeats the message of the Gospel which he first proclaimed to them when he lived among them. That’s why he can say to the Thessalonians and to us here in light of the Gospel – “You, my brothers and sisters, are not in darkness for that day of the Lord to overtake you like a thief in the night. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness.” As one commentator has said – Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians could very well be summarized in a few brief words: “holiness and hope in the pagan world of the ancient Roman Empire”.
4. Obviously, the problems that the Thessalonians had are not our problems today. Our problems today center around the teachings of the faith which many seem to ignore in our secular, commercial, warring and terrorist world. If Paul were writing to us today in the world of our time, his message to us would be the same: “holiness and hope in the world of this time”.
5. November is an excellent time to reflect on the question of death. It’s that time of the year when our thoughts focus very much on our loved ones who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. As we all know, for men and women everywhere, the fact of death is a profound puzzle in the face of which the riddle of human existence grows most acute. We all, of course, experience pain and the advancing deterioration of the mind and body and all the endeavors of technology cannot calm the anxieties to which death gives rise within the human spirit. Some in our society reject the thought of life after death. Some in our society are seeking the medicine of immortality and are convinced that medical science will discover such a remedy. Where will we find the truth of things? The exciting good news of our Catholic faith tells us – there is a cure for death, that the medicine of immortality has been found. The Eucharist we celebrate this very afternoon, the very presence of the risen Christ in our midst, is God’s pledge of eternal life. For us who follow the risen Christ, death’s enigma is resolved in Christ. Death means dying with Christ to whom we often say – “Dying you destroyed our death; rising you restored our life; Lord Jesus, come in glory”. And this Lord who is with us this very evening in word and in sacrament, and who indeed will come again is the very Lord who said to his first disciples – “I am the resurrection and the light, whoever believes in my, even if he dies, shall live and whoever lives and believes in me will never die”. When the Lord first spoke these words at the death of his friend, Lazarus, he said to Martha – Do you believe this? He asks us this very same question. Do we believe what the Lord has said to us? Do we have firm hope in what he has promised us?
6. We who follow Christ are men and women of hope by definition, that is, by the Gospel fact that God has graced us in Baptism with the virtue of hope. This does not mean that hoping is unique to Christians. What is unique is the way we hope and why we hope. Hoping is not wishing; hoping is not the equivalent of an optimistic outlook. The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration of happiness which God our Creator has placed in every human heart. Hope keeps us from discouragement when we think of our ultimate goal in the light of our present weakness. Hope sustains us when we seem to be abandoned. Hope is the gift and power that comes from God when we set our hearts on the Kingdom of Heaven and on the goal of everlasting life. Do you recall the Act of Hope, which perhaps some of us memorized when we first encountered the Catechism – “O my God, relying on your infinite goodness and promises, I hope to obtain pardon for my sins, the help of your grace and the gift of everlasting life through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.” This is why the great Italian poet Dante placed over the gates of hell – “Abandon hope all you who enter here”. Hope rests on the promises God made to us in Christ and in our hoping we rely not on personal strength but on the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why we too must pray – “May the Father of our Lord Jesus enlighten the eyes of our heart so that we may know what is the hope that belongs to our call to holiness of life.”
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