“God is Hope”

The new encyclical “Spe Salvi” – saved by hope, by our beloved Holy Father Benedict the 16^th imparts an important message “Hope is God”. “Hope, in fact, is a key word in Biblical faith”.  Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose to life, brought this “Hope” to us. This trustworthy hope is stronger then any sufferings and slavery “ a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from with in”.

As our Supreme Pontiff correctly points it out neither the radical ideologies like Marxism nor the political structures or the modern scientific developments can bring the true hope to this world but instead they bring “greatest forms of cruelty” and science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human.

The Christian message is not “informative” but also “performative” that is, “the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be know, but it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing”.

Moreover, our Holy Father insists that we must get rid of the individualistic understanding of salvation that is, “hope for myself alone, which is not true hope since it, forgets and over looks others”.

The Holy Father instructs us “the first essential setting for learning Hope is Prayers”.  When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our neighbors”.

Suffering is a part of our human existence. What heals man, the Holy Father teaches, is not “sidestepping or fleeing from suffering, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love for us.

Finally The Holy Father goes on encouraging us to live with others, he says, “our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve”.

I just would like to raise the same question, which the Holy Father himself left for our personal reflection “what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise?”