Why are you holding on?

Sometimes hope seems absurd.

It can be difficult, if not impossible, to see passed the thick, dark cloud of one's present reality - but hope doesn't need to see.  In fact, it's not supposed to.

Hope in God is a certain trust that He does indeed "work all things for the good for those who love Him."  It is being sure that God is faithful to His promises and that "the sufferings of this present time cannot compare with the glory to be revealed."  

Hope, the Scripture says, "does not disappoint."  It does not disappoint because hope cannot quite perceive (as it shouldn't - otherwise it would be vision and not hope) the joy and fulfillment that awaits us in Heaven.

St. Bernadette whose body is incorrupt.

I'm reminded of what the Virgin Mary told St. Bernadette (the visionary from the famous French town of Lourdes) that, in effect, "I do not promise you joy in this life but in the next."  This world is the only opportunity that we have to embrace the cross and the One Who rests upon it.  For all eternity we will rejoice with Him in glory.

But eternity is not enough.  We should want to spend time with Him.

And time?  Time in our fallen world is a Cross.  It is a Cross because it involves hope for what we do not yet possess fully, namely, the One Who makes the Cross worth it - and worth anything at all.  Without Christ then suffering is pointless and without ultimate hope.  But with Christ the Cross is full of hope.

And hope does not disappoint.