Saturday, October 3 : Saint John-Mary Vianney

My brothers, if faith reveals God’s presence to us everywhere, hope leads us to do everything we do with the sole aim of pleasing the good God, sustained by the joyful thought of an eternal reward. Since this virtue so greatly alleviates our afflictions, let us consider together wherein lies this beautiful and precious virtue of hope. If, my brothers, we have the blessing of knowing through faith that there is a God—our Creator, our Savior, and our supreme Good—who created us solely to know, love, serve, and possess Him, then hope teaches us that, however unworthy we may be of this happiness, we can hope for it through the merits of Jesus Christ. To make our actions worthy of reward, my brothers, three things are required: faith, which allows us to see God present in them; hope, which moves us to perform them with the sole aim of pleasing Him; and love, which binds us to Him as our supreme Good. Yes, my brothers, we shall never know the degree of glory that each action will earn us in heaven if we perform it purely for the sake of the good God; not even the saints in heaven comprehend it. (…) But, you might ask, what does the word “hope” mean? It means this, my brothers: it is to yearn for something that will make us happy in the life to come; it is to ardently desire deliverance from the ills of this life and to desire the possession of every good capable of fully satisfying us. (…) I say that our hope must be universal—that is to say, we must turn to the good God in all circumstances that may befall us.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team