Papal preacher: Hope helps 'crippled' hearts rise up, leap for joy

ATICAN CITY (CNS) — Hope is patient, concrete and extraordinary in that it can change everything, the papal preacher said.

Hope “is the opposite of impatience, of haste, of ‘everything immediately.’ It is the antidote to discouragement. It keeps yearning alive,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa told Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia during a Lenten meditation in the Paul VI Audience Hall March 15.

Reflecting on Jesus’ words from St. John’s Gospel — “I am the resurrection and the life” — Cardinal Cantalamessa said there are two kinds of resurrection: the resurrection of the body and the “resurrection of the heart that must take place every day!”

The resurrection of the heart is the rebirth of hope, he said.

“Strangely, the word ‘hope’ is absent in Jesus’ preaching,” he said, “even though all his preaching proclaims that there is a resurrection from death and eternal life.”

The reason there are no words about hope in the Gospel is simple, the cardinal said: “Christ first had to die and rise again. By rising again, he opened the source of hope; he inaugurated the very object of hope, which is a life with God beyond death.”

The rebirth of hope in one’s heart is like what happens to the man crippled from birth whom Peter heals at the gate of the temple. Peter gives him neither silver nor gold but commands, “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, (rise and) walk,” and the man leaps up, jumping and praising God.

“Something similar could happen to us, too,” because of divine hope, carried by the word of God, which says, “Get up and walk,” the cardinal said. The heart can go from being paralyzed by difficulties to getting up and entering “the heart of the church at last, ready to take on, once again and joyfully, the tasks and responsibilities assigned to us by providence and obedience.”

“These are the daily miracles of hope,” Cardinal Cantalamessa said. “It puts thousands of people spiritually crippled and paralyzed back on their feet, thousands of times.”

“What is extraordinary about hope is that its presence changes everything, even when outwardly nothing changes,” he said.

It does not let people lay back and dream about an imaginary world, he said. “On the contrary, it is very concrete and practical,” always finding there is something that can be done to improve every situation.

Hope, however, is also patient, he said. Quoting St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, difficulties produce endurance and “endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.”