Humility and Hope by Jorge Mario Bergoglio

LET US ASK the Holy Spirit, who knows how to imprint on our hearts all that is good, to grant us the gift of hope and make us ready to receive it. The hope I speak of is different from optimism. Hope is not boisterous; it has no fear of silence; it sinks deep, as do roots in wintertime. Hope is sure, for it is given by the Father of all truth. It discerns what is good and what is bad. It does not worship what is best (thus not yielding to optimism), nor does it rest content with what is worst (it is not pessimistic). Since hope distinguishes between good and evil, it is militant but not in an anxious or obsessive way; it struggles on steadily, like those who know they are running toward a sure goal, as the scripture tells us: "Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (Heb 12: 1). What we propose, then, is precisely a militant hope.

TO UNDERSTAND the process of discernment that such hope requires, we do well to consider the despairing attitudes that every so often take root in our souls. Sometimes we experience them in obvious ways; other times we feel them in the dark corners of our hearts, those recesses where we "store" the odds and ends of our existence, the shoddy baggage with which we soothe ourselves. These despairing attitudes develop in the same way as does the anti-kingdom: they begin with being barely poor, they continue with vain ambitions, and they end up with bloated pride.