“May theskdjhfh of hope fill you with all joy and peace in your faith, so that in the power of the Holy Spirit you may be rich in hope.” – Romans 15:13
So many people these days are walking around quite hopeless. We are still under the effects of the coronavirus, things are still uncertain on that front, and then there is all sorts of civil unrest in our country. So much of what we used to take for granted now seems to be unraveling at an alarming speed. Though we have a brand new year, we still have some of the same old problems, and it sure looks like 2021 will have enough problems of its own. But here is where we have to stay balanced as Catholics. The problem with hope is that we have a rather nasty tendency on placing on hope on created things: we hope that the weather will be nice, we hope that our favorite team makes it to the Super Bowl, we place our hope in all sorts of people who may or may not know what in the world they are doing. There are so many things that we are placing our hope in, but if we are going to get through these and any other messes in our lives, we should only place our hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who is faithful to you, and he's the only one who will never let you down. Now some of you reading that will say, "Hey wait, I've been praying for all sorts of things and Jesus hasn't answered a single one of them, so how can you say that he won't let me down?" Easy. Those things that you are praying for, you have placed your hopes in them and not in Jesus. Praying to Jesus is not like playing the lottery! You placed your hope in what you wanted and not necessarily in what Jesus wants for you. When you place your hope in our Lord and in him alone, then you are much more able to say and to mean it, "Lord you know everything, you know what's best for me. Your will be done." Yes, things might get to be a bit crazy for awhile, but for those of you who have studied a bit of the history of Church, what do you soon discover? Every age of our Church history has been filled with some very difficult and trying times. It's just now our turn. Now yes, could our turn to go through the evils of this world be the final one, or in other words, are we entering the end of time, the last days? Probably. But here is what we have to keep in mind: the average age of death for a male in the United States is 78. I'm going to be 62 later on this year. That means that if I'm average, if I don't catch any disease or die from being a martyr because I'm holding to teachings of the Catholic Church, then that means that I only have about 16 years left on this planet. Dang. I'm definitely in my last days! And for those of you who are thinking about poor old Fr. DePalma but you are thinking that you are in good shape because you are only 30 years old, well you only have about 48 years left yourself. Let me tell you how quickly 48 years passes by: pretty damn fast! Hate to tell you this, but you too are in your last days. That's just how it is. So why don't we make the best of it. Why don't we become as faithful as we can be, why don't we become as hopeful as can be, and for good measure why don't we become as full of the love of Jesus Christ as we can be. We place our faith in Jesus, we certainly place our hope in our Lord and we do the best that we can to imitate his love for us when it comes to loving others. But with all of the turmoil that is going on in this world of ours, there is one thing that is for certain, one thing that if we are even half-way trying to be a good Catholic is something that we can't get around: there's no choice, we have to become the best Catholics that we can be, or to put it even more plainly, we have to become saints. Is there hope for you? Can you do it? Not by yourself. But with the full power of the Holy Spirit, let's do it, let's become saints, let's get our names in the Church calendar, let's live lives that will place some of you in stained glass windows. How? How do we become saints?
1. Always look straight ahead towards God and never take your eyes off of Him. 2. Pray. How often? Oh, like all of the time. 3. For the love of God, and of neighbor, start obeying the Commandments. 4. Receive the Sacraments frequently. That's what they are there for. 5. Praise God, especially in all that is good, true and beautiful. 6. Read your Bible daily. 7. Surrender your life to God. 8. Stop fighting with God and start trusting in Him with all of your heart and soul. 9. Let God be God and frequently remind yourself that you are not God. And finally, number 10. Never, ever forget that Jesus believes more in you than you do in him. He already knows that you will make a great saint, so then why are you doubting yourself? Be filled with confidence, God is with you. And be filled with hope, the world desperately needs to see that in you.