Lent 2026 - Reading #36 - Hope
Reading
Thomas Aquinas defines hope as the theological virtue that unites desire with confidence: "Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. The object of hope is eternal beatitude, and its foundation is God's omnipotence and mercy." Aquinas carefully distinguishes hope from both presumption and despair: "Hope holds the mean between two vices: presumption, which exceeds hope by expecting beatitude without merit, and despair, which falls short of hope by considering beatitude impossible to attain. The hoping person neither presumes upon God's mercy without any effort toward conversion, nor despairs of God's mercy on account of the magnitude of their sins." For Aquinas, hope is thus a supremely realistic virtue, it takes seriously both the difficulty of the journey and the power of the One who accompanies us. It is not optimism (which can be naive) nor resignation (which can be cowardly), but a confident expectation grounded in the character of God. The hopeful person says: This is hard, I am weak, but God is faithful.
Reflection
Thirty-eight days into Lent, we arrive at hope, the virtue that faces forward, toward Easter and beyond. Our pilgrimage has been long and demanding: six weeks of building virtue upon virtue, of fasting, praying, and examining ourselves with increasing honesty. The cardinal virtues gave us the tools of a good human life; faith opened the door to the divine. Now hope does something neither could do alone: it gives us the confidence to believe that the journey has a destination worth reaching. Aquinas's definition is beautifully balanced. Hope is neither the reckless confidence that says "God will save me regardless of how I live" nor the crushing despair that says "I am beyond saving." It is the mature, tested trust that says: "The road is difficult, my failures are real, but God's mercy is greater than my sin, and God's power is greater than my weakness." This is the hope that Lent has been forging in us, day by day. As we enter this penultimate week, notice how hope connects to everything that has come before. Prudence sees the difficulty; justice acknowledges the debt; fortitude bears the weight; temperance orders the soul; faith trusts the unseen God. Hope takes all of this and adds the one thing still missing: the forward-looking confidence that what we are doing matters, that our small Lenten sacrifices participate in something vast and victorious. Easter is coming. Hope knows it.