Salesian Literature

Chapter 16:  How love is practised in hope

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Once a man’s mind is carefully brought to bear on what faith shows him to be his supreme good, his will immediately begins to feel a tremendous gratification.  This gives birth to an ardent desire for the presence of God who, at the moment, is far away.  The soul is lead to plead: A kiss from those lips (Cant. 1:1)

 

My soul is thirsting for the Lord:

When shall I see him face to face (Ps. 41:1)

 

This is only to be expected; who would not desire so desirable a good?  Such desire would be vain, however, resulting in nothing but continual martyrdom of heart, had we no guarantee of one day satisfying it.  That man, for whom, the happiness of God’s presence was delayed, who declared that tears were his diet morning and evening, that his enemies kept taunting him, Where is thy God now (Ps. 41:3) – what would he have done without some hope of one day possessing that blessing for which he longed? The bride, too in the Song of Songs, pined away with love, when here search for her true love was prolonged (Cant. 5:8).  Love bred desire, desire bred urgent search; it was that urgency which caused her to pine away, which would have wasted and broken her heart, if she had known no hope of meeting in the end with the one she was seeking.

 

So, lest the restlessness and agony of love’s longing cut down our courage, or bring us to despair, God not only impels us to desire him, but also guarantees that we can easily possess him – witness thousand upon thousands of promise to this effect in Scripture, in his inspirations – as long as we are willing to use the means he has prepared, the means he offers us.

 

The conviction that God gives us that heaven is ours adds immeasurably to our desire of enjoying it, yet weakens, even utterly paralyses, and disturbing restlessness such desire may have brought us.  In this way God’s promises bring us peace of soul – a peace which is the root of the virtue we call hope.  When faith assures the will that it can enjoy the possession of God by using the means provided, we make two great acts of virtue: we look forward to the fulfilment of God’s promise, and we set our hearts on the possession of him.

 

Hope, therefore, is but the loving gratification we experience in looking forward to, setting our hearts on, our supreme good.  Love is behind it all: once faith shows me my supreme good, I love it; because I am not in possession of it, I desire it; and the more I know that God means to give himself to me, the more fervently do I love and desire him – his goodness, you see, is ever more lovable, more desirable, the greater his readiness to share it with us.

 

Since we expect to possess God by the help of God – setting our hearts in him, looking forward to him, by his grace – the virtue of hope leads always only to God and is, therefore, a divine or theological virtue.

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