For What We Do Not See

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance. (Romans 8:24-25)

The Lord has done marvels for us.  (Psalm 126:3a)

Again he said, “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.” (Luke 13:20-21)

Piety

Lord, I give You thanks and praise for Your presence in my life.

Study

Maybe it starts in childhood.

We hope for a pony. We get a tricycle.

Kazimierz Wojniakowski [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons.

We hope for a particular doll or bat or tablet or game subscription. The one we get is fine… but it’s not exactly the one we had our heart set on. And so we become more specific, more defined in what we want in gifts or people. We set up our wish list on Amazon and our non-negotiables on CatholicMatch or elsewhere because we think in the tangible, the specific. We hope for what we have seen, what we know will make us happy. We pray for that too: Give me that promotion. Provide the money for that new house. Bring me a spouse. Often, we had these things once, and they were lost along the way. Other times, we pray for them because we’ve seen how happy they make others, and surely they will do the same for us. We waste time and hope pining for the things we know or once knew, things that everyone else except us seems to have. After all, we know best what we need.

Paul advises us today to develop the faith to have hope, for one necessarily follows the other for Christians. Our greatest hope, that of eternal life, comes through our belief in the Resurrection and the promise that it is available to us as well. What does heaven look like? Our brains cannot begin to imagine, most likely. And so we hope to be worthy of it, as we work and wait, confident of the Lord’s presence here and His constant love for us.

Put aside those childhood disappointments of hope unrealized. The Lord will not disappoint.

Action

There’s a definite place for intentional prayer. But just for today, consider focusing your time with the Lord on adoration instead.