Monday of
the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time
August 31, 2015 8:30am
I want to repeat the first
sentence of our first reading today.
Saint Paul says: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers
and sisters, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve
like the rest, who have no hope.”
So, Paul recognizes that when a
loved one dies, we will grieve.
We will feel loss, perhaps a
great loss in our lives.
We will be sad, maybe very sad
and even lost.
Grief like this is normal and can
be a sign of love and of what another meant to us.
But, Paul does not want us to
grieve “like those who have no hope.”
One of our insightful Catholic
writers, Father Henri Nouwen, says that hope is different from optimism.
Optimism is the attitude or
expectation that things will get better – the weather, relationships, the
economy, whatever.
Hope is the trust that God will
fulfill his promises to us in a way that will be good for us.
The optimist speaks about
concrete changes in the future.
The person of hope lives in the
present with the trust that God will take care of us and that all of life is
ultimately in God’s hands.
Hope is the trust that God will
be with us through the darkness of everyday hardship and loss and that we will
not be alone through this.
It is the trust that God will
lead us to a fullness of life, to resurrection, after physical dying.
This hope, our hope, is based on
faith in Jesus and in the paschal mystery, the mystery of death and
resurrection.
May this virtue be a strength and
guide for us each day of our lives.
May it be nourished every time we
celebrate and receive the Eucharist.
