“Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2090).

“What is your greatest hope?”

Living comfortably. Job promotions and salary increases. Buying a home. Retiring and traveling the world. Marriage and children. Sainthood. Heaven. Eternity with our Lord.

Are you living on cheap hope, trying to control everything within your reach? Or are you living on the real hope of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word? Are you hopeful or striving for control?

In Hope: An Invitation, Sister Josephine Garrett, CSFN, reflects on her own journey from living with no hope to living with real hope. It is an invitation to surrender our control and meet hope with honesty and vulnerability—to break free from our fantasy world and live with freedom as the beloved daughter of the King Most High.

A Greater Good

There are three types of discernment, according to Sister Josephine: discerning between good and evil, discerning between two goods, and discerning the “gift of nearness that God has to us” in ordinary experiences.

Grief and pain are a part of the discernment process, because there is a cost of saying “yes” to a good, especially a greater good. We say goodbye to the comforts of evil and then “surrender some goods to pursue other goods,” that the greater good may come from saying “no” to a lesser good.

To discern is to judge well and recognize we cannot have all things. Sister Josephine writes that the greater good comes from one long surrender with smaller acts of surrender throughout our life. It is discerning God’s presence in our ordinary experiences. The discernment for the greater good is a lifelong process made up of small “yeses” in the moment.

Everyday Witnesses

The saints are our witnesses of hope—not because they were perfect but because they said “yes” to the Lord again … and again … and again. Sister Josephine cites imagery used by Pope Francis: The saints are like our stained glass windows, allowing light to enter in different shades of colors. The different shades show that God cares about all the details of our lives and that we all belong in His Church.

The saints are all different, with different backgrounds and trails, but they all have one thing in common: They said “yes” to the Lord. Their “yeses” give us hope that our life has purpose and meaning and that there is a Lord who is pursuing our soul. 

In allowing the Lord to use them, the saints teach us how to reach beyond ourselves and invite others to the Eucharistic table. The diversity and uniqueness of the saints show that the Eucharist is for all people, regardless of race or ethnicity. The saints are our witness of hope in reaching out to people who have been ignored, abandoned, or forgotten, either in our day-to-day life or on a wider scale, and bringing them to Christ’s Eucharistic table. 

We can see this witness of hope in the people around us: the person who brings a coffee or meal to a friend who’s having a rough time, the one who will consistently call a family member who cannot leave their house, the co-worker who listens intently to how you are doing, the cashier who smiles and meets your eye while you’re checking out at the grocery store. We can be witnesses of hope today. We can say “yes” to allowing the Lord to shine His light through us in the present moment.

The Slow Work

So often, we want to get to the ending. We want to see how this situation will resolve or how our vocation will unfold. We want the healing now. We want to know.

In other cases, we have been working so hard and long on listening to God’s voice or waiting for healing and restoration that we want to give up. Either we are frustrated with the process, or, worse, we believe that God has forgotten and abandoned us.

But the Lord does not move quickly; He works slowly, little by little, asking us to surrender and experience the depth of His love for us and inviting us into deeper relationship and intimacy with Him. Sister Josephine reminds us that God is constant and invested in His children and His promise.

Scripture is all about trusting in the slow work of God. The Israelites walked for 40 years. Generations waited for the Messiah. Jesus lived a quiet family life for 30 years before beginning His public ministry. We are waiting for His kingdom to come. The Eucharist is the slow work of God, causing both delight and disturbance as He conforms us into His likeness.

The slow work of God is hard and frustrating. I have been frustrated when I thought I had been healed, only for something to come up that still needed healing and reconciliation. But Sister Josephine is right that the sorrow and hurt we experience does not undermine or dimmish what the Lord has healed or accomplished in our life. We can hope for what might be, even if it is the fulfillment of the kingdom.

We need the slow. In moments of frustration and sorrow, we can delight in His promises and the fact that He is constantly reaching down to invite us into deeper intimacy. That deeper intimacy is experienced in the Eucharist, where only He can disturb the plans we have made and call us to the better plans He has for us.

Advent: The Season of Hope

Emmanuel means “God is with us.” His presence is everything, and His birth changes everything. The King of Kings could have chosen a palace, but He chose a manager to show the lengths that our  Lord will go to be with us.

Mary is the Mother of hope. She carried Jesus for nine months, preparing to see Hope itself in the most unexpected and spectacular way. Sister Josephine writes that Mary continues to carry her Son’s love for us, patiently waiting until we are ready to receive Jesus, and St. Joseph is our great witness to hope, as he watched Hope grow in Mary’s womb and Hope “born in the fullness of time.”

Jesus’ birth is reason for hope. He is God—Emmanuel, the long-awaited Messiah. He did not come in glitz and glam but in a lowly manager, to be our Savior. Jesus is the greatest romance story, and it all starts with hope that the Father fulfills His promises.

We can walk with Mary, the Mother of all hope, and St. Joseph, the great witness to hope, this Advent season. We can have hope that the Lord will heal and is faithful, hope that the Lord sees us and wants us to receive His love, and hope that we can surrender our fantasies and walk in freedom with the Lord.

Alexandra (Alex) Harrel resides in Irving, Texas. She is a new student affairs professional within the world of higher education. In her spare time, she loves reading, listening to podcasts, and spending time outdoors. Her favorite prayer is Hail, Holy Queen. You can follow her on Instagram at @2012alexandra.