1. 1. 1. 1. Exc. M. Rev. Monsignor SALVATORE NUNNARI
            Metropolitan Archbishop of Cosenza-Bisignano
            Hope the door of the church

Nature of Hope

I want to start this conversation with some literary suggestions of very great evocative power.
“Where are you, Hope?”. It is the question in the lyric To Hope of Holderlin that had already contrasted in the novel Hyperion the lightness of hope, which is a dream, to the heaviness of reasoning, which is like walking with difficulty, “Man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he reflects “. In this poem, hope seems happy, as close to mere mortals as to the powerful of heaven. The heart of man is by now without singing and numb. Yet the valley is green, the water fresh, the flowers open, life continues invisible in the woods and the stars joyous bloom. Hope descends from the gardens of the Father as an Earthly spirit even in the form of fear, desired so that the heart remains frightened by hope, beneficially scared. Let us read it together:
“O Hope! O gentle, O thou beneficial!
You that do not overlook the house of the poor!
Noble! You that operate pleased
Among mortals, and the mighty ones of heaven.
Where are you? I lived little, but my twilight
Already blows cold. And I am already here, similar to a shadow and the heart without singing numb is sleeping in my chest.

There in the green valley where continuous
fresh from the mountain the spring murmurs,
and the sweet crocuses open
in the autumn day, I want silently
to look for you, or in the woods where invisible life, in the middle of the night, floats, and above me the flowers shine
always cheerful, the bloomed stars.

o you daughter of the ether, you appear to me,
from the gardens of the Father!
Come down terrestrial spirit; or, if you cannot, with other
shape, scare, scare my heart! ”

And more:
“What surprises me, God says, is hope; oh incredible. This litlle hope that does not seem to have any consistency. This little girl hope. Immortal” (Peguy). “Hope is an act of faith” (Proust). “Hope is the greatest and most difficult victory that one can score in his own soul” (Bernanos, Freedom for what?). That is right. “Christ our hope” (1 Tim 1.1). The presence of Christ in the lives of believers is quite a real mystery which however, God wanted to reveal. The mystery itself revealed by God is the object of the Christian hope. Therefore, at the origin of the Christian hope there is a free and gratuitous act of the love of God; it consists in the call to salvation through the participation in his own life.

Therefore, hope in the Christian perspective does not come from man, but it is a free call that starts from the Revelation of God. It is here that the novelty of our conception is perceived and discernment takes place concerning every other form of hope that belongs to humanity as an effort completely human of aiming to the future. In fact, the Christian hope is distinguished from human hopes or utopias (progress, communism, and socialism) by the origin and object of hope. As for the origin, it is founded neither on a philosophy nor on an ideology, nor on the will of man, but finds its reasons directly in that “God of hope” (Rom 15:13).
With regard to the object, then: it does not end in human time; on the contrary, as Paul VI explains, it has as its goal the “salvation, a great gift of God which not only is it liberation from everything that oppresses man; but above all it is liberation from sin and the Devil, in the joy of knowing God and being known by him, of seeing him, of handing yourself over to him” (Evangelii nuntiandi, n. 9).
In other words, the Christian one is a meta temporal and superhuman hope that proposes man a supernatural destiny; it is a transcendent hope that begins to be realized here and now. Nevertheless, it does not remain confined in to the temporal horizon, but it is a “prophetic announcement of a hereafter, a profound and definitive vocation of man, together in continuity and discontinuity with the present situation “(Evangelii nuntiandi, n. 28).
In this sense, any ideological (think of what happened with the theology of liberation) or pseudo-social reading of the Christian hope is equal to its denaturalization and adulteration. However, at the same time, this does not mean that it is alien to the present life, indeed, the sons of God must commit themselves each according to his personal vocation, to achieve in this
world the Kingdom of God through the testimony of the love given. Here is then what Christians are to achieve: an awareness of a balance between history and transcendence or better, of a history lived through the eyes of the transcendent and of the already and not yet. Hope is not a forgetfulness of life. On the contrary, it is a new look on everything that comes from faith. To hope is to learn to see what is really lovable and desirable in the apparent daily banality, even into contradictions. Not only will the future that awaits those who today hope and believe compensate for the present; but, above all, will surpass it in the intensity of happiness. The drama is to survive and to no longer plan, to lose the sense of our diakonia of hope, not a hope just for us but for everyone. John Paul II in the “Nuovo Millennium Ineunte” exhorted us “let us go on in hope.” While St. Bernard said to his monks: “Who does not go forward, moves definitely back.”
In fact, hoping is catching a glimpse in the present of the future of everything and moving on. But who grants us all this? God is our guarantee and his Resurrection is the tangible sign.
Therefore, what is the identity of the Christian hope? To answer this question we can refer to the wonderful encyclical of the Holy Father Benedict XVI SPE SALVI, which is a great lesson in theology and in the witness of lived faith. First of all hope is not individualistic, but communitarian; as communitarian is the Christian life. After a long journey, especially in modern history, in which the Pope explains that all hope is centered exclusively on man and on his technological achievements is a vain hope that it will be disappointed. The real Hope, instead, the one that really saves, is a free gift of the faith that is made directly by God through his son Jesus.

The reason cannot tower above, as some modern philosophers and some current ideological claimed, Hope (Spes). “Man is not able to save himself alone without an intervention that goes beyond himself… without a Hope that goes beyond his earthly hopes, since these are such that once reached, they are already outdated and fail to permeate with that joy that can only come from the Eternal.” The communal character of Hope is explained by his being intimately in communion with Jesus and through him with all our brothers.
The encyclical, then, concludes with a description of the Places of learning and of practicing hope. This means that “the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known, but it is one that produces facts and changes life. The dark door of time, of the future was opened wide. New.”
“Coming to know God, the true God, means receiving hope.” The first Christians, like the Ephesians, who before encountering Christ had many gods but lived without hope and without God; understood this well. But our communities often live a mortal risk: that of addiction and habit forming. For those who lack the enthusiasm and freshness, the Pope says: the hope “that comes from a real encounter with… God it is almost no longer perceived.” In fact, we can affirm that the same crisis of faith is ultimately “a crisis of the Christian hope.” Modern man, that is, loses faith when he stops to hope and falls in anguish and desperation. But it is right when all seems lost and foolish that faith can lift us “with eagle wings” and bring us back to life. To the young, I often ask “What do you hope?” and not “What do you believe in?”.
Compared to the modern mind, it is necessary on the one hand to challenge its myths (progress unhooked from morality, absolutism of reason, of freedom and science) but on the other hand appreciate the good that it brought into the world. The horizon is the one repeatedly stressed by Benedict XVI:
on the one hand, faith-hope is not fanaticism, but it must be kept in close relationship with the rationality, on the other human reason must be freed from the confinement to the sphere of the experimental and calculating and opened to the dimension of the faith, of the mystery, and of hope: hope for reason is a reason that makes room to hope.
For the technological age, in fact, “The restoration of the lost paradise, is no longer expected from the faith,” but from the scientific and technical progress, from which, it is erroneously thought, “the kingdom of man” might emerge. Hope thus becomes “faith in progress” based on two pillars: reason and freedom which “seem to guarantee by themselves, by virtue of their intrinsic goodness, a new human and perfect community.”

On the contrary, “hope in the Christian sense is always hope for others. And it is an active hope, in which we struggle “so that” the world becomes a little more luminous and humane.” And only if I know that “my personal life and history as a whole are guarded by the indestructible power of love “I” can always still hope even if… I have nothing more to hope.”
The man of hope is defined by Paul “spe erectus” (Rom. 12:12). That is, we are dealing with a man that walks straight, not with the head bent down, disconsolate, retreated into himself and isolated.

The fields of hope in the Spe Salvi
Where can we learn hope, in what places can we savour all its strength? The encyclical has identified three areas of learning: prayer, action and suffering, judgment. The prayer is the essential dimension
the man open to hope: it “is a process of inner purification which makes us apt for God” (p.64). Moreover, “prayer is the language of hope” (Ratzinger). That is, the hope takes root and is realized precisely in our life as asking and invocation. In the prayer we become capable of understanding the way in which the Spirit of God wants to lead us. The same Spirit that makes what happens happen, teaches us how to discern what Christ asks of us. What matters then is not to strive to distinguish between our thoughts and feelings what God suggests us; but to learn how to listen to the Spirit, to have on what happens the same look of Christ. Jesus makes us enter little by little into this new look if we ask him for it with a true desire. It is necessary that our prayer brings inside itself the whole of our history and it really is our cry in front of God.
Before reflecting briefly on the other two areas proposed by the Pope, I would like to broaden the discourse on prayer, particularly with regard to the sacramental dynamic which is the source of the Christian hope. God was not satisfied with being a man, but he wanted to be me and arrange so that I became him. That is, not only he calls me to him, but he enters into my life identifying it with his. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” Paul says in the “Letter to the Galatians,” and to the Philippians “for me living is Christ.”
Beginning from baptism, through all that is born and is its flowering, Christ enters into us in order to transform us, little by little. Who attracts us does not remain outside of us, but enters into us through His Spirit. Christ comes to dwell in our person through the gift of the Sacraments: after baptism, the Eucharist which its highest development, penance (closely connected to it), the sacraments of marriage and of the sacred order; which characterize the adult life and the special vocation of each.
Therefore, even suffering is a place of learning of hope in the awareness, however, that eliminating the power of evil, of guilt, “only God could realize it: only God that personally enters history by becoming man and suffers in it.”Ave Crux spes unica” (Hail Cross only hope).
We know, that is, that this God exists, therefore such power “takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1.29) is present in the world. (Spe Salvi: 36).
“It is not the sidestepping of suffering, fleeing from suffering that heals man, but the ability to accept the tribulation, and in it mature; to find meaning through the union with Christ who suffered for infinite love” (n.37).
“The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and the sufferer. This applies to the individual and to society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and is incapable of contributing through the com-passion to arrange that suffering is shared and taken internally is a cruel and inhuman society. (n.38). God reveals his face right in the figure of the sufferer that shares the condition of a man, abandoned by God and taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has become hope and certitude. God exists and God knows how to create justice in a world that we are not able to conceive; and that, nevertheless, in the faith we can perceive. Yes, there is the resurrection of the flesh, there is justice. There exists the revocation of the past suffering, the reparation that the re-establishes the right”(n.43).
Therefore, the Judgment cannot be the face of threat or fear, and indeed, faith in the Judgment becomes faith in hope.

“For this faith, – Benedict XVI still writes – in the Last Judgment is first and above all hope, that hope, that hope whose necessity was made clear right in the upheavals of the last centuries.
In fact, “a world that must create justice itself is a world without hope” (p.8I). On the contrary, a world that trusts in an final justice can hope and activate a full responsibility for the present acting and dry the tears of those who suffer because in the end God will give to each according to his own merits and according to mercy. In God there is no disappointment, everything passes only God and the hope of seeing him face to face remains.

Hope told to the world
We are living an important moment in history. The great changes that are before our eyes, involve particularly the mutation of the paradigms of thought that from antiquity to the present day have developed into a dynamic, yet coherent way. We are seeing a substantial modification of the basic concepts of culture such as those of nature-world, man-god, space-infinity, eternity-time, freedom-truth, right and justice … just to name a few. Pluralism, relativism and often indifference in our society impose us believers a reflection that sees to it not only to clarify the concepts and the reasons for our hope, but also to codify new languages that express with coherence the contents of always and support their testimony. The richness of the Christian tradition, its message and the mission that God himself entrusted to the priests and to every baptized impose us to speak to the world of what we hope. A society that wanted to exclude Christianity would thereby be
destined to despair. In fact, it would not have in itself, the creative force and the sap that makes man a living man and not folded on his short time. For this reason, having hope means trusting in Him knowing that He alone will give us full life. You must take risks knowing that, as written by Charles Peguy in the composition of the Portico of the Mystery of the second virtue: “He has put in our hands his eternal hope, and we, sinners will not put our weak hope in his eternal hands … Singular virtue of hope, a singular mystery, it is a virtue on the counterattack. When everything falls she alone goes up. ”

Conclusion

I like to end by turning a thought to Mary, Mother of Hope, “The Mother of Jesus… now shines on earth in front of the people of God in pilgrimage as a sign of sure hope and consolation, until the day of the Lord will not come” see PT 3.10 (68).
With a hymn of the eighth-ninth century, therefore written more than a thousand years ago, the Church greets Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the sea.” (Ave stella maris) Hail, star of the sea. Human life is a journey. Toward which half? How do we find its way? Life is like a voyage on the often dark and stormy sea of history, a voyage in which we watch the stars that indicate us the route. The true stars of our life are the people who knew how to live rightly. They are lights of hope.
And what person more than Mary could be Star of Hope for us? Therefore, the question on hope crosses the question on this exceptional woman and can seek right in the Woman the sure sign of hope.

Thank you.