Reality of Hope

This week's Gospel has been about Jesus "going away" so that the Spirit of Truth may come. In a way, it is about the pain of loss and the need for hope.

There are many times in our lives when we experience the pain of "going away", the pain of loss, and we need something to pull us through that pain.

Robert Wicks writes in Seeds of Sensitivity I knew at the core of my being that real life, the sensitive life, must contain by its very nature both the anguish of painful realities and the hope of what still can come to fruition...I knew at a deeper level that one couldn't escape the dire realities we all must face if we wish to be alive rather than die slowly, hidden under a psychological shroud of denial and avoidance...I learned another lesson of possibly equal importance: when one is suffering one must also remember the important reality of hope... [35]

Wicks goes on to give his own definition of Hope - not an absence of trials - but an attitude of living which makes one seek and find new possibilities because of an attitude of trust. Wicks quotes Vaclav, the former poet-leader of the Czech Republic:

                   Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the conviction
                    that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense,
                    regardless of how it turns out.

Hope is active, action, attitude. The disciples, waiting in the Upper Room for the fulfillment of Jesus words, did not practice much hope. They waited for something to happen. Once the Spirit came, they sprung into life, and did something...they lived that hope by their lives, going about preaching the good news.