In these last weeks of our liturgical year our thoughts, prayers and scriptural reflections turn toward what we have traditionally called “the Last Things” and what is now spoken of in terms of eschatology.  These Last Things consist of Heaven, Hell, Final Judgment and Eternal Life.  What attracts us to these beautiful reflections in these days is the emphasis on Christian hope. 

     In our world today there is a lot of discussion about a crisis of hope.  What meaning can we give to our lives if there is no hope for something beyond our present vision?  If life consists only of what we can see and nothing more then we are left with a great emptiness in our lives.  Life certainly has its share of suffering and what helps us to get through that suffering is a goal for our lives and a certainty that things are moving toward that goal.  We do not know how things are going to work out ultimately but we have the assurance in faith that if we prepare well now for our future, enduring whatever present sufferings we might face, that there will be a fullness of life in the future.  Just as we acknowledge that faith is a divine gift from God, so do we understand that hope is a gift from God that gives us courage to face life’s challenges today so that we are prepared to live the “new life” that will be ours in the future.  As Pope Benedict put it in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “The Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known – it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing.  The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open.  The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of new life.”

     What makes hope difficult these days is that we are living in a world “without hope and without God in the world” for as St. Paul reminds us in our second reading, “for not all have faith.”  We have to be ready to “give everyone a reason for our hope” as St. Peter exhorts us and that reason is love.  The love of God has been revealed to us in the encounter we have with Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.  Jesus Christ stands at the center of our lives and of our history and as long as we keep our eyes and hearts fixed on him we can live in the hope of new life.    In our encounter with Jesus, the Risen One, we have come to see and know the love that God has for us and Jesus has revealed to us his Divine Will for our salvation.  This Divine Will assures us that we will not be forgotten in death but that we will be gathered one day into the Father’s embrace of eternal life and love.

     During these days in which we contemplate our Christian hope and the reason for our hope, my mind always returns to the “revelation of the Children of God.”  Through baptism we are given faith and faith gives us the power to become the children of God.  John tells us in the prologue of his gospel, “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.”  To be a child of God by adoption is to be an heir to eternal life.  God does not forget his children.  God has promised his children eternal life in “the Father’s house”.  Jesus tells the Sadducees today in the gospel that they are mistaken about heaven and eternal life.  In heaven we will live like the angels, in God’s presence, in glorious freedom, in a fullness of life and love.  There are no possessions or being possessed in heaven, just a glorious freedom of sharing life and love with all the saints and angels in God’s presence.  Pope Benedict reminds us in Spe Salvi, “Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God – God who has loved us and who continues to love us “to the end,” until all “is accomplished”…Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship.  And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life.  If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life.  Then we “live”.”

     My hope is in love.  The love that a Father has for his children.  My hope is that I will always remember that I am a child of God and love God the Father with a child-like love and trust.  My hope is that God the Father will remember me at the hour of death and bring me home to join in the eternal communion of love among the saints and angels.  I am a child of God, that’s all I need to know, that’s the reason for my hope.