Perfecting hope

What is it about women that makes us so compulsive, so doggedly stubborn at times?

We persist in reading a book to the very last page even when we know by page 10 it's REALLY bad. Likewise we watch excruciatingly bad movies to the last frame, while a man would have flipped the channel a long time ago and watched at least a dozen other programmes.

In discussing the charism of woman, Fr. A. declared that woman's charism was to be life-giving and part of this charism was the facility and capacity for hope, something that men lack.

To illustrate his point, he brought up the weddding at Cana. It was Mary's hope in her son Jesus (despite His initial hesitance, she tells the men to do whatever He tells them) that led to the miracle of the transformation of water into wine.

While reflecting on Fr. A.'s words, I concurred with his opinion for it was Zechariah's inability to hope that led to his disbelief in the news the angel brought to him of Elizabeth's imminent conception of his son John.

It was hope that gave my grandmother the necessary daring to find the means to feed the family while my grandfather was at a complete loss on how to survive during the Japanese Occupation.

Hope was what enabled St. Monica to pray for many long years for the conversion of her sinful son into St. Augustine, one of the greatest theologians of the Church.

Hope is what makes women illogical creatures who depend on intuition more than fact.

There is a downside, however, to this facility. Especially when it is coupled with low self-worth, for hope is what keeps a woman in an abusive relationship for years. Even to death, at times.

"He's a good man and he's always very sorry after." "He loves me and he loves the children very much." "He promised me he would not do it again."

I am also reminded of the episode of Oprah "He's just not into you". Women just refused to believe that a particular man was not vested in their relationship for he would occasionally make the effort to be attentive or charming.

It was scary to watch attractive women in the audience rationalize and defend their decision to hang on to a relationship when it was clear as day to everyone else that he was just stringing her along and was a complete jerk.

Hope should not make us wait in vain for a hopeless cause.

More than just an emotion, hope is a spiritual grace and one of the three theological virtues of the Roman Catholic Church.

Karl Rahner understands hope to be the medium between faith and love, the other two virtues and that faith and love are "formed by hope".

It is because of hope that we dare to love on and on, again and again, despite being hurt.

It is hope that brings us faith, a faith that believes all things are possible with God.

As St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, "In hope we are saved," for it is this Spirit-endowed grace that enables the surrender of self to the self-giving God, the human capacity for God to be our salvation that is a person's fundamental self-interpretation in relation to God (The New Dictionary of Theology).

Hope is what gives us the will to live, to conquer fears, to reach the summits of the Everests in our lives, to dream the impossible dream and effect miracles.

It is also what brings forth life, supports and sustains it.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor concluded that life has meaning under any circumstance and thus even suffering was meaningful. And because we have the freedom to find meaning in what we do and all that we experience, the human spirit could survive even the most horrific atrocities.

St. Paul give us the Christian perspective when he talks about how faith, hope and love work together to help us grow in a life of grace:

Suffering (trials) produces endurance (patience), and endurance (patience) produces character (merit), and character (merit) produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:3 – 5

It is by faith that we can hope to experience the kingdom of God not only in the future but in the here and now, and we achieve this by serving Him in love. Thus suffering is no longer something meaningless but a means to attain perfection.

Don’t stop seeking perfection in hope.