Love2learn Moments #48: One Who Has Hope Lives Differently

As Catholics, our lives and priorities will be ordered in a different way than if we had no faith. This is a defining difference when it comes to education because, not only does it give a good example to our children, but it also prepares us to make everyday decisions about our children's education.

Here's what our Holy Father had to say in his encyclical on hope:

Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only "good news" - the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only "informative" but "performative." That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known - it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.

Love2learn Moments #47: Suffering and Hope

It's natural to want to avoid pain, but there's a good reason why we say, "No pain, no gain." In the same way that we don't ban bicycles because children might get hurt, we don't shelter ourselves from love and friendship just because they involve the risk of hurt and disappointment. Pope Benedict XVI said:

We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it, and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love. (Spe Salvi)

Love2learn Moments #45: Certitude and the Saints

In his recent encyclical on hope, Pope Benedict XVI explained that:

...in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career, and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses - martyrs - who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way - day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day - know that this is how we live life to the full;... the capacity to suffer for the sake of truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope.