What is hope Hope is a gift from

What is hope? • Hope is a gift from God. Hope brings a sense of optimism to our life journey. • It is ‘the theological virtue through which a person both desires and expects the fulfillment of God’s promises of things to come’ (USCCA, 515). The sacred authors of Scripture used the word “HOPE” more than 140 times. • Hope is linked with our desire for happiness, holiness and justice. Hope is a theological virtue. Today, in Evening Prayer (Vesper) of the Liturgy of the Hours for those who have died, the Church filled with hope, sings out: In you, o Lord, is our hope. We shall never hope in vain. We shall dance and rejoice in your mercy. We shall never hope in vain.

Chesed Steadfast loyalty and love • Chesed is the Hebrew word for ‘commitment’. This word has been translated in a variety of ways, such as “merciful”, “compassion”, “steadfast love”, but none of these words can capture fully the meaning of chesed. Chesed is a key attribute of God as well as a quality that describes the relationship between God and the human family. God calls us to be chesed people. Chesed is a way of being faithful in love to God, to ourselves and to our neighbor, as the Great Commandment teaches. God’s steadfast love is one of the unifying themes throughout Sacred Scriptures.

Covenant chesed Chesed is at the heart of the Covenant that God and his people freely, and not routinely , enter into, which some biblical scholars translate as ‘covenant love’. In biblical times, a covenant was an irrevocable ‘commitment’ to someone, for which those involved were willing to give their life and their blood.

I AM who I AM God’s Word is who he is. God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM (YHWH) This is my name forever’ (Exodus 3: 14, 15). God always keeps his Word. God is truth and love; he is always faithful. God has given us his Word in Jesus, the Word of God made flesh and the ‘new and everlasting covenant’. Our faith in Christ gives us the vision to keep on hoping.

Cain and Abel In the Genesis we have many stories describing the Consequences of the efforts of humans to struggle to be “like” God without being close to God. The meaning of Theses stories tell you how sinful choices, no matter how ‘small” those choices are, do violence to God’s loving plan of goodness for creation. God’s chesed (loyal love, grace kindness, commitment) toward us, his commitment to set things right, is constant even in the worst times. • The story of Cain and Abel reveals that sin turns differences and disappointments into hatred and tragedy, however God persevere in chesed. Protagonist of the story. • Eve: In Hebrew, this name means “mother of all that live”. Her son Cain is the first person ever to be born. Her second son is Abel. Every human person is made of body and soul. The soul is created immediately by God and does not perish at the death of the body.

Cain and Abel Cain: The name Cain means “maker” or “producer”. Cain was the first farmer and the first to provide food for his family. Abel: The name Abel means “puff of air”. Abel the younger brother, is always following Cain around. Cain is a farmer, Abel becomes a shepherd. When Cain makes a sacrifice to God, so does Abel. Read Genesis 4: 1 -16. Even when one brother murders another, God’s steadfast love and mercy is the divine response. But there are negative consequences to Cain’s actions. Cain can never face his family again. Cain even believes that God will turn away from him. Cain has forgotten that God always respond with chesed.

Noah and the Great Flood In the story of Noah and the Great Flood (Genesis 6: 5 -9: 17), God saw that human kind was inclined toward evil, so with the Flood he undoes what the first chapter of Genesis says (Creation). Only Noah, who was a just man, with his family and enough animal to repopulate a purified world, survive. God gives Noah and his children 2 guidelines: they must NOT murder and they must respect the life within all living beings(Genesis 9: 4 -6). God promises, “I have set my BOW in the clouds… When. . the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between Me and every living creatures” (Genesis 9: 13 -15).

Ruth and Naomi The story of Ruth and Naomi provides models of chesed for God’s people. The book of Ruth has his place in the period of Judges (Ruth 1: 1) from 1250 to 1050 BC. About the writing of the Book of Ruth, many do agree that the sacred author put into writing a story that had long been part of the Oral Tradition of the Israelites. Read the story (page 60 -61) • Ruth’s promise to stay with Naomi is a strong example of chesed love. • Ruth’s promise to Naomi is often read as one of the readings at Catholic weddings. . Such love gives hope for ever.

Ruth and Naomi Ruth’s great-grandson, David, grew up to become a king of Israel. • Jesus was a descendant of King David, making him also a descendant of Ruth. For this reason, Ruth knows beforehand that Mary will be the mother of Jesus “of the house of David”. • Jesus is the ultimate model of Ruth’s chesed love. • For Christians, this kind of steadfast love is the web that holds the universe together.

God’s Covenant with Abraham The Bible is the epic account of the fall and redemption, of man’s sin and God’s Generosity and steadfast redeeming love. • The story of God’s people in the Old Testament is a story of infidelity and fidelity, of slavery and liberation and of exile and freedom. Jesus Christ is the ‘new and everlasting Covenant’, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises to and Covenant with Abraham and his descendants—and all humanity.

Abraham • The Lord said to Abram, go from your country…I will make of you a great nation. . (Genesis 12: 2 -3). So Abram went…He was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot…. and they set to go to the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12: 4 -5). • Abram, whom God would later rename Abraham, and his family were nomads who lived around 1800 BC. In Haran in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). • He and his family believed in many gods, as did the people of Mesopotamia. • Yet Abram believed and trusted one God. This faith of Abraham in the one true God became the foundation of the life of Abraham and his descendants.

Abraham • Abraham responded to God’s Chesed with his own steadfast loyalty. He trusted to obey God and to sacrifice the most precious gift he could imagine, his son Isaac. God kept his promises to Abraham and his wife Sarah, their son Isaac & his wife Rebekah, their descendants, like their grandson Jacob (also called “Israel”) and his 12 sons who became the leaders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

God’s Covenant with Israel The Pentateuch (books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), contains the faith story of God reestablishing his relationship with the descendants of Abraham and entering the covenant with the Israelites. The God of Abraham gives his word to Moses and promises to save the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and lead them in freedom to a new land. (See page 65) Moses received the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue on mount Sinai, which ‘express man’s fundamental duties toward God and toward his neighbor’ (CCC, no. 2072). The Decalogue, the law written on the heart of every person, is the law of the Covenant, which Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill.

The Prophets Judges, kings, prophets and others were inspired to remind God’s people that, Not following the Torah, they were unfaithful and needed to return to their Covenant commitment with God. The struggle between sin and virtue in God’s people is the same struggle that every human faces. • In the eighth century BC God chose and sent the prophet Hosea, who himself suffered from a marriage in which his spouse was unfaithful to him, describes the covenant as a marriage, a committed partnership between the people of Israel and God. Nothing can or will ever shatter God’s loyalty to the covenant. Though the ancient Israelites turned away from God, God responded with chesed.

The promise of a world renewed Nelson Mandela (1918 -2013), great leader of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, spent 27 years in prison. During this time he wrote: • I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. God first entrusted the knowledge of his promises to the people of ancient Israel. Through the prophet Jeremiah, The Lord promised a “new covenant”: “ I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”. (Jeremiah 31: 32 -33). The new covenant is Jesus Christ.

Typology in the Old Testament • The Old Testament records the history and hopes of the ancient Israelites and points in a prophetic way the coming of Jesus Christ. • Each of the covenants that God and the Israelites entered foreshadowed (which means dropping hints or clues about what will happen later in a story) Christ and his Paschal Mystery, which is the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. To read the bible “Typologically” means recognizing a kind of “foreshadowing” in the Bible. Jesus is the ‘new and everlasting covenant’ between God and humanity.

The Suffering Servant God chose the prophet Isaiah, whose name means ‘God is salvation’, to deliver a message and vision of hope to the Israelites. Central to that message are the four ‘Suffering Servant Songs’ in the Book of Isaiah: • • Isaiah 42: 1 7 Isaiah 49: 1 7 Isaiah 50: 4 9 Isaiah 52: 13— 53: 12

Who is the Suffering Servant? The Suffering Servant represents: • the entire people of Israel, temporarily defeated but God will save them; • the ‘remnant’ of true believers: those exiled Jews who have maintained their commitment to God; • Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Suffering Servant.

Sacred Scripture The New Testament lies hidden in the Old [Testament] and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. —CCC, no. 129 All Sacred Scripture. . . is but one book, and this one book is Christ. —CCC, no 134

The path to eternal Life Christians know that living as people of the ‘new and everlasting Covenant’ requires us to do the works of compassion—to live the Works of Mercy, the works of chesed.

The story of St. Damien of Molokai • Born Jef de Veuster in Flanders, Belgium in 1840. • Became a priest and changed his name to ‘Damien’ in honor of an ancient saint who refused payment for healing the sick. • Pastor of a leper colony on the island of Molokai in Hawaii. • Died after contracting leprosy. • Patron of people with Hansen’s disease and HIV/AIDS. • Canonized on October 11, 2009. Like Abraham, Damien left his country, his family, his father’s house; like Ruth, he lived, died and was buried with the people he loved.