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AT the end of November last year, Pope Benedict XVI
issued an encyclical discussing the philosophical and theological
aspects of the virtue of Hope. One would almost think, the
encyclical was in preparation for Christmas and the just-ended Lent.
The Pope notes the disappearance
of Christian Hope in contemporary life and the emergence of a false
hope ending in disguised despair and a Godless “faith in progress
that produces progress in evil.”
As in other papal encyclicals,
the title of Spi Salvi is derived from the first two Latin words:
Spi Salvi facti sumus. “In hope we were saved,” St. Paul says in
his Letter to the Romans. Pope Benedict XVI says salvation is
redemption. Christians hope to be saved because they have faith and,
as Pope Benedict says, faith is hope. Faith and hope are two of the
three theological virtues, the greatest of them being charity.
In his encyclical, the Pope notes
the loss of Christian hope as a supernatural and infused virtue and
its replacement by human hope. The object of Christian hope is to
possess God and enjoy eternal life with him. Human hope, on the
other hand, is simply a disposition or attitude anchored on a desire
to be happy through good fortune and one’s own will, power and
effort. Christian hope is based on a firm trust in God’s love,
mercy, providence and fidelity to his promises.
Early on, the Pope, underscores
that a distinguishing mark of a Christian is that because of hope,
they have a future. “It is not that that they know the details of
what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life
will not end in emptiness. 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 that 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.”
I spent last February adjusting
to an overhauled heart after a bypass and an aortic valve repair
operation. While this is now a routine procedure, there is always a
life-threatening aspect that must be taken into account. And as a
usual precaution, I requested for the sacrament of the anointing of
the sick. I told Fr. Jimmy Achacoso, a friend who responded to my
call, the rite would solve me the problem of going through a
thorough examination of conscience. But he made me go through a
regular confession first before performing the rite anointing the
sick.
Bouyed by the hope that being in
a state of grace, I was ready to meet whatever happens.
Nevertheless, I thought that I still have to keep praying but in the
last moments before the anaesthesia “caught,” I couldn’t
remember any prayer except Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, which
I learned from a Reader’s Digest article a long, long time ago.
And I also remembered that it was a prayer for those who are in
danger of death.
In Spi Salvi, Pope Benedict uses
the figure of Christ as the Good Shepherd. “The figure of Christ
as true philosopher, holding the Gospel in one hand and the
philosopher’s traveling staff in the other . . . The shepherd was
generally an expression of the dream of a tranquil and simple life,
for which the people, amid the confusion of the big cities, felt a
certain longing. Now the image was read as part of a new scenario
which gave it a deeper content: ‘The Lord is my shepherd: I shall
not want . . . Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I fear no evil, because you are with me . . . “The true
shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the
valley of death, one who walks with me even on the path of final
solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through; he
himself has walked the path, he has descended into the kingdom of
death, has conquered death, and he was returned to accompany us now
and to give us certainty that together with him, we can find a way
through. The realization that there is One who even in death
accompanies me, and with his ‘rod and his staff comforts me’, so
that ‘I fear no evil’ . . . –this was the new ‘hope’ that
arose over the life of believers.” (Continued)
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