Spes Non Confundit

How do we see the future? with uncertainty? anxiety? doubt?

There is a gift which can turn uncertainty into confident trust, anxiety into serenity and pessimism into joyful expectation. This gift is hope. A gift we are called to receive and share with others.

What is hope? ’Hope is “that theological virtue by which we desire… eternal life as our happiness”’. *(19)

And why do we desire this? Because Christ died and rose from death. ‘Christian hope consists precisely in this: … buried with Christ in Baptism, we receive in his resurrection the gift of a new life that breaks down the walls of death, making it a passage to eternity’. *(20)

‘What, then, will become of us after death? With Jesus, beyond this threshold we will find… happiness. Not some fleeting pleasure, a momentary satisfaction that, once experienced, keeps us longing for more, in a desperate quest that leaves our hearts unsated and increasingly empty. We aspire to a happiness that is definitively found in the one thing that can bring us fulfilment, which is love’. *(21)

‘Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross’ and shared with us by the Spirit. “Hope does not disappoint [“spes non confundit”], because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:1-2.5).*(3)

“May we … seize the hope set before us. We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered” (Heb 6:18-20).’The image of the anchor is eloquent; it helps us to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus’. *(25)

The Holy Father inaugurated the Jubilee Year of Hope as he opened the door of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican on 24 December 2024.

‘Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Ps 27:14). May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever’ *(25).

(*) SPES NON CONFUNDIT Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee 2025.