List of points

To achieve this goal, we must act like souls urged on by Love and never as people under punishment or a curse. 'Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.' Thus we shall complete our tasks perfectly, using our time to the full, for we shall be instruments who are in love with God. We shall be conscious of all the responsibility and trust that God has placed on our shoulders in spite of our own weaknesses. In every one of your actions, because you are relying on God's strength, you must behave as one motivated solely by Love.

But let's not close our eyes to reality and content ourselves with a naive and superficial outlook that could lead us to think that the road ahead is an easy one, and that to follow it we only need to make a few sincere resolutions and have an ardent desire to serve God. Make no mistake about it. As the years go by, you will have to face (perhaps sooner than you think) situations that are especially difficult and which will call for a great spirit of sacrifice and an even greater forgetfulness of self. Foster then the virtue of hope and boldly make your own that cry of the Apostle: 'For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us.' Reflect in peace and security on what it will be like to have the infinite Love of God poured out on this poor creature that we are. The time has come, amid your ordinary occupations, to exercise your faith, awaken your hope and revive your love; that is, to activate the three theological virtues, which help us to banish immediately (without dissimulation, deceit or evasion) any ambiguities in our professional conduct or in our interior life.

Here in the presence of God who is presiding over us right now from the Tabernacle (how reassuring it is to have Jesus so very close to us!) we are going to meditate today on the virtue of hope, that gentle gift from God which makes our hearts overflow with gladness, spe gaudentes, joyful, for if we are faithful an everlasting Love awaits us.

Let us never forget that for all men, and therefore for each and every one of us, there are only two ways of living on this earth: either we lead a divine life, striving to please God; or we set him aside and live an animal-like existence, guided to a greater or lesser degree by human enlightenment. I have never given too much credit to the 'do-gooders' who pride themselves on their unbelief. I love them truly, as I do all mankind who are my brothers. I admire their good will which in certain aspects may even be heroic. But I also feel sorry for them because they have the immense misfortune of lacking the light and the warmth of God, and the indescribable joy which comes from the theological virtue of hope.

The true Christian, who acts according to his faith, always has his sights set on God. His outlook is supernatural. He works in this world of ours, which he loves passionately; he is involved in all its challenges, but all the while his eyes are fixed on Heaven. St Paul brings this out very clearly: quae sursum sunt quaerite; 'seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Savour the things of Heaven, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead', to worldliness, through Baptism, 'and your life is hidden with Christ in God.'

But along with these timid and frivolous types, we also find here on earth many upright individuals pursuing noble ideals, even though their motives are often not supernatural, but merely philanthropic. These people face up to all kinds of hardship. They generously spend themselves serving others, helping them overcome suffering and difficulties. I am always moved to respect and even to admiration by the tenacity of those who work wholeheartedly for noble ideals. Nevertheless, I consider I have a duty to remind you that everything we undertake in this life, if we see it exclusively as our own work, bears from the outset the stamp of perishability. Remember the words of Scripture: 'I considered all that my hands had done and the effort I had spent doing it, and I saw that all was vanity and a striving after wind, with nothing gained under the sun.'

This precariousness does not stifle hope. On the contrary, once we recognise the insignificant and contingent nature of our earthly endeavours, the way is then open for true hope, a hope which upgrades all human work and turns it into a meeting point with God. An inexhaustible light then bathes everything we do and chases away the dark shadows of disappointment. But if we transform our temporal projects into ends in themselves and blot out from our horizon our eternal dwelling place and the end for which we have been created, which is to love and praise the Lord and then to possess him for ever in Heaven, then our most brilliant endeavours turn traitor, and can even become a means of degrading our fellow creatures. Remember that sincere and well-known exclamation of St Augustine, who had such bitter experience when God was unknown to him and he was seeking happiness outside God: 'You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you!' Perhaps there is no greater tragedy for man than the sense of disillusionment he suffers when he has corrupted or falsified his hope, by placing it in something other than the one Love which satisfies without ever satiating.

In my case, and I wish the same to happen to you, the certainty I derive from feeling — from knowing — that I am a son of God fills me with real hope which, being a supernatural virtue, adapts to our nature when it is infused in us, and so is also a very human virtue. I am happy because I am certain we will attain Heaven if we remain faithful to the end; I rejoice in the thought of the bliss that will be ours, quoniam bonus, because my God is good and his mercy infinite. This conviction spurs me on to grasp that only those things that bear the imprint of God can display the indelible sign of eternity and have lasting value. Therefore, far from separating me from the things of this earth, hope draws me closer to these realities in a new way, a Christian way, which seeks to discover in everything the relation between our fallen nature and God, our Creator and Redeemer.

Perhaps some of you are wondering, 'What should a Christian hope for?' After all, the world has many good things to offer that attract our hearts, which crave happiness and anxiously run in search of love. Besides we want to sow peace and joy at every turn. We are not content to achieve prosperity just for ourselves. We want to make everyone around us happy as well.

Some people, alas, whose aims are worthy but limited and their ideals only perishable and fleeting, forget that Christians have to aspire to the highest peaks of all, to the infinite. Our aim is the very Love of God, to enjoy that Love fully, with a joy that never ends. We have seen in so many ways that things here below have to come to an end for all of us, when this world ends; and even sooner, for each individual, when he dies, for we cannot take wealth and prestige with us to the grave. That is why, buoyed up by hope, we raise our hearts to God himself and have learned to pray, in te Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum, I have placed my hope in you, O Lord: may your hand guide me now and at every moment, for ever and ever.

God did not create us to build a lasting city here on earth, because 'this world is the way to that other, a dwelling place free from care'. Nevertheless, we children of God ought not to remain aloof from earthly endeavours, for God has placed us here to sanctify them and make them fruitful with our blessed faith, which alone is capable of bringing true peace and joy to all men wherever they may be. Since 1928 I have constantly preached that we urgently need to christianise society. We must imbue all levels of mankind with a supernatural outlook, and each of us must strive to raise his daily duties, his job or profession, to the order of supernatural grace. In this way all human occupations will be lit up by a new hope that transcends time and the inherent transience of earthly realities.

Through Baptism we are made bearers of the word of Christ, a word which soothes, enkindles and reassures the wounded conscience. For Our Lord to act in us and for us, we must tell him that we are ready to struggle each day, even though we realise we are feeble and useless, and the heavy burden of our personal shortcomings and weakness weighs down upon us. We must tell him again and again that we trust in him and in his help: if necessary, like Abraham, hoping 'against all hope'. Thus we will go about our work with renewed vigour, and we will teach others how to live free from worry, hate, suspicion, ignorance, misunderstandings and pessimism, because God can do everything.

Wherever we may be, Our Lord urges us to be vigilant. His plea should lead us to hope more strongly in our desires for holiness and to translate them into deeds. 'Give me your heart, my son,' he seems to whisper in our ear. Stop building castles in the air. Make up your mind to open your soul to God, for only in Our Lord will you find a real basis for your hope and for doing good to others. If we don't fight against ourselves; if we don't rebuff once and for all the enemies lodged within our interior fortress — pride, envy, the concupiscence of the flesh and of the eyes, self-sufficiency, and the wild craving for licentiousness; if we abandon this inner struggle, our noblest ideals will wither 'like the bloom on the grass; and when the scorching sun comes up the grass withers, and the bloom falls, and all its fair show dies away'. Then, all you need is a tiny crevice and discouragement and gloom will creep in, like encroaching poisonous weeds.

Jesus is not satisfied with a wavering assent. He expects, and has a right to expect, that we advance resolutely, unyielding in the face of difficulties. He demands that we take firm, specific steps; because, as a rule, general resolutions are just fallacious illusions, created to silence the divine call which sounds within our hearts. They produce a futile flame that neither burns nor gives warmth, but dies out as suddenly as it began.

You will convince me that you sincerely want to achieve your goals when I see you go forward unwaveringly. Do good and keep reviewing your basic attitudes to the jobs that occupy you each moment. Practise the virtue of justice, right where you are, in your normal surroundings, even though you may end up exhausted. Foster happiness among those around you by cheerfully serving the people you work with and by striving to carry out your job as perfectly as you can, showing understanding, smiling, having a Christian approach to life. And do everything for God, thinking of his glory, with your sights set high and longing for the definitive homeland, because there is no other goal worthwhile.

Let us grow in hope, thereby strengthening our faith which is truly 'that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we cannot see'. Let us grow in this virtue, let us beg Our Lord to increase his charity in us; after all, one can only really trust that which one loves with all one's might. And it is certainly worthwhile to love Our Lord. You and I know from experience that people in love surrender themselves unhesitatingly. Their hearts beat in a wonderful unison, with a single love. What then will the Love of God be like? Do you not realise that Christ has died for each and every one of us? Yes, for this poor little heart of ours, Jesus consummated his redeeming sacrifice.

Our Lord speaks frequently to us of the reward which he won for us by his Death and Resurrection. 'I am going away to prepare a home for you. And though I do go away, to prepare you a home, I am coming back; and then I will take you to myself, so that you too may be where I am.' Heaven is the final destination of our path on earth. Jesus has gone ahead of us and awaits us there, in the company of Our Lady and of St Joseph, whom I so much revere, and of all the angels and saints.

Even in the times of the Apostles there were heretics who tried to tear hope away from Christians. 'If what we preach about Christ, then, is that he rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say the dead do not rise again? If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless, and your faith too is groundless…' Our way is divine, Jesus himself being the way, the truth and the life, and thus we have a sure token that it ends in eternal happiness, provided we do not separate ourselves from him.

May the Mother of God and our Mother protect us, so that each one of us may serve the Church in the fullness of faith, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and with our contemplative life. May each one of us joyfully honour the Lord by carrying out his own duties, those which are properly his; each one of us, in his job or profession and fulfilling the obligations of his state in life.

Love the Church; serve the Church with the conscious gladness of one who has committed himself to this service for Love's sake. And if we should see anyone travelling without hope, like the two men on the road to Emmaus, let us approach them full of faith — not in our own name but in Christ's name — to reassure them that Jesus' promise cannot fail, for he is always watching over his Spouse and he will never abandon her. The darkness will pass away, because we are children of the light and have been called to life everlasting.

'And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away. And he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. He said to me, Write it down, for these words are most sure and true. And he added, It is done. I am Alpha, I am Omega, the beginning of all things and their end; those who are thirsty shall drink — it is my free gift out of the spring whose water is life. He who wins the victory shall possess all this; I will be his God, and he shall be my son.'