thoughts on hope
Thursday, October 12th, 2006
Picture ‘endless’ originally uploaded by antimethod on flickr
“Hope empties our hands in order that we may work with them.”
I’ve been thinking about the issue of hope lately. There are many ways to think about it, but I have particularly enjoyed some of Thomas Merton’s thoughts on the topic of hope, in this world, in society, in family, through struggle, through joy, with friends, with myself, with God. Here’s some of his thoughts related to hope:
“When we do not desire the things of this world for their own sake, we begin to see them as they are.”
“Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things.”
“Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty having nothing. And yet, if we abandon ourselves to economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for.”
“Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God.”
“Hope empties our hands in order that we may work with them.”
“We can either love God because we hope for something from Him, or we can hope in Him knowing that He loves us. Sometimes we begin with the first kind of hope and grow into the second.”
“Those who abandon everything in order to seek God know well that He is the God of the poor.”
