Lent 2026 - Reading #42 - Hope
Reading
Thomas Aquinas teaches that hope is perfected in the beatific vision but sustained in this life by patient endurance: "Hope regards two things: the future good which it expects, and the divine help by which it expects to attain that good. The theological virtue of hope awaits with certainty the blessed life to come, because it rests not on human power but on divine omnipotence and mercy. Yet in this present life, hope is always accompanied by a certain anxiety, not from uncertainty about God's faithfulness, but from uncertainty about our own." Aquinas adds: "Hope gives rise to prayer, for no one prays for what they do not hope to receive. And hope is sustained by patience, for patience endures present evils in the expectation of future goods. Without patience, hope would be overcome by the weariness of the present; and without hope, patience would have no reason to endure." For Aquinas, hope and patience are inseparable companions on the journey of faith. Hope gives patience its reason; patience gives hope its stamina. Together, they sustain the soul through the long middle of the journey, the stretch between promise and fulfillment, between Ash Wednesday and Easter, between this life and the next.
Reflection
We close our week of hope on the forty-fourth day of Lent, and Aquinas draws together hope and patience into a single chord. Tomorrow begins Holy Week, the final, climactic week of our journey, devoted to the greatest of all virtues: love. But today, on the threshold, we pause with hope and let it do its work. The relationship between hope and patience is the story of Lent itself. For six weeks we have been patient, with ourselves, with the disciplines, with God's seeming silence. And what has sustained that patience, day after day? Hope. The hope that Easter is coming. The hope that these small sacrifices matter. The hope that we are being changed, even when we cannot feel it. The hope that the God who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. Without hope, Lent would be unbearable. Without Lent, hope would be untested. Tomorrow, Palm Sunday, the mood shifts. We enter Jerusalem with Jesus, and the week that follows will take us through the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the trial, the cross, and the tomb. Love, charity, the crown of all virtues, will be our companion through it all. Every virtue we have cultivated has been preparation for this. The prudence to see what the cross truly means. The justice to recognize what we owe. The fortitude to stand at the foot of it. The temperance to let go of what must be surrendered. The faith to trust what we cannot see. The hope to believe that death is not the end. Now comes love. All of Lent has been leading here.