the crowning of hope

Ponder this: It is Advent, and Pope Francis announces the Jubilee Year of Hope, echoing the words of St. Paul: “Hope does not disappoint” (Romans 5). As a Church, we’ve had plenty of time to contemplate this “Year of Hope” and say yes to the deeper pilgrimage into our hearts. The virtue of hope is such a mystery. The word itself invites us to go beyond our limits, reaching beyond human capabilities and into the supernatural realm. By God’s grace, the strength of acquiring hope is “constant, faithful, righteous, pure, invincible, and impossible to extinguish,” as spoken by Charles Péguy. Hope plays the character of the little child.

As the year of hope began, I stumbled upon a lovely poem—unlike any other I had ever encountered. It stretches across 192 pages and portrays this virtue as a little girl journeying through life, accompanied by her two older sisters: Faith and Love. The poem is The Portal of the Mystery of Hope by Charles Péguy, and it has changed my life.

In classic Sarina fashion, I began paging through the poem, skipping ahead in curiosity at Péguy’s literary genius. (Some people may be a little upset to hear that I am one of those notorious readers who start a book and sometimes open to the middle. It’s a terrible habit I have acquired and I’m sure plenty of writers would be distraught to hear of my mischievous ways!) Anyway, I was only a few pages in, completely captivated, when I decided to do a “random flip-to” read. Little did I know my heart was about to be wrecked—in the best way possible.

I would like to share this excerpt from the poem and reflect on the wisdom it reveals about this sometimes-forgotten virtue. Please note that Péguy is writing in poetic language; he writes as though in conversation with another, explaining what hope truly is.

“Perhaps the most glorious of all is that a man’s repentance should be the crowning of God’s hope…

As for the others, God loves them in love. But Jesus also loved this sheep in hope. And all the others, God loves all of us in charity. But the sinner, there once was a time when God loved him in hope.

You have to take everything word for word, my child. God hoped. God waited for him.
God, who is everything, had something else to hope for—from him, from this sinner. From this nothing. From us. He was put in this position; He put Himself in this position, in the situation of having something to hope for, to await something from this miserable sinner.

Such is the strength of the life of hope, my child… that resurges in repentance itself. In lowly repentance…

This soul, who literally triggered hope in God, was the crowning of God’s hope. This soul who was dead—like Jesus (more dead than Jesus), by its own death—has risen from the dead.”

The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, Charles Péguy

Woah.

A man’s repentance should be the crowning of God’s hope.

Let those words find a resting place in your heart.

God hopes. He believes in man’s repentance. He awaits that lowly repentance to happen in man’s heart. Jesus hopes because He believes His lost sheep will come back home. He knows that His Father’s children are made for Paradise, and He hopes that they will be reconciled to His dwelling place someday. God allows Himself to be stretched, praying that the loving arms that reach towards man will one day be met with an embrace. Not only does God wait in hope, but He lives in the ultimate eternity of fulfillment.

The Prodigal Son

It is like the gaze of the father in the story of the Prodigal Son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” The father waited in hope for his son to return. Not once did his gaze stray from the distance that lay between them.

My brothers and sisters, this is the hope our Good Father has for you and for me—for our friends and our families, for our Church, for our world. God believes in the repentance of mankind. There was a time, before your conversion, when God hoped for you to come home. That heart-wrenching ache you may feel for a situation to change, for a breakthrough to happen, for a longing within you to be satisfied—this is a glimpse of the Father’s Heart for you, for humanity as a whole. The Father always held confidence in His Son’s return, never losing faith in whom He had created. Such is the love that God has for us. Such is the power of hope, the confidence of hope, the innocence of hope.

The Cross, a Stretching of Hope

Even as Jesus hung upon the Cross, His blood slowly draining from His body, His breath leaving His lungs, He looked into the eyes of His persecutors. He sought the heart of Peter, who was not present. He heard the words of the two thieves—and He hoped for each one's repentance. Even in that moment, He believed in the possibility that these children would come home. The innocence of His Heart believed in the purity He saw still present in another, no matter the sin. He did not allow the many disappointments of the world tarnish the constant faithfulness of love in His own Heart. He chose to hope, broken and open. Hope is pure. The one who hopes is the one renewed to innocence. Innocence like a child who is unaware of the world’s false pretenses.

My brothers and sisters, His hope was touched on the Cross when the lowly thief repented in his final moments: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Do we ponder this moment enough? Jesus, stretched naked upon the Cross, hoped beyond any hope we could imagine. Hoisted high above the people, Jesus looked out and saw His Father’s children for who they are: His. He saw not the sin, He saw not shame, but saw who they were always made to be, the eternal perspective. That stretching you have felt—for goodness, for fulfillment, for a promise to come to fruition—pales in comparison to the longing of God’s Heart, which beat and bled and burned with hope for humanity to return to the Father’s House.

And yet, this one sinner quenched His thirst. This one thief was the crowning of Jesus’ hope in that moment. “You will be with Me in Paradise.”

The Power of Hope

Hope is the sight of the eternal perspective, to see all through the lens of Heaven’s wisdom. Such is the power of hope made manifest in us. This is the hope God has planted in our own hearts. The strength of hope that stretched Jesus upon the Cross lives within us. The innocence in which He longs to restore us to, the innocence of our childlikeness, if we dare to be so, will be the crowning of hope. This is the strength of hope—the little girl who leads her older sisters, Faith and Love, along the road to Paradise.

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, I encountered a real little girl who showed me the path of hope, and I would love to share her with you. Stay tuned for Part Two of this blog: St. Maria Goretti, Patron of Hope.