For the past two weekends, we’ve talked about FAITH…This weekend, as we go deeper into this holy season of Lent, we come to the second supernatural theological virtue:

The Virtue of Hope.

And from the outset, I think it’s worth asking this:

What are you hoping for?

We can hope for all sorts of stuff, right?

When we say we’re “hoping” for something… what we usually mean is “I wish” for this or “I would like” this to happen…

For example: As you may know, I absolutely LOVE riding roller coasters — and something I’m HOPING very much to achieve this year is to get on my 300th roller coaster. That would be AWESOME… and I am really REALLY hoping… I am wishing…that this happens!!!!!

We can also hope for… wish for… much much more important things in life, right?

We hope that our family and friends are healthy and happy and safe.

We hope that we will be able to afford the bills each month.

We hope that the cop sitting on the side of the road wasn’t checking our speed before we tapped the brakes.

If you’re a student or a young adult, you’re probably hoping that you’ll be able to find a career that you love… that you eventually find a good husband… a good wife… you hope to have kids one day!

Those are all really great, BEAUTIFUL things to hope for… absolutely!

But here’s the thing… These are all examples of “natural hope.” And I hate to break it to you, but natural hope can very easily be disappointed.

…Sometimes, the things we hoped for… just don’t happen. The story doesn’t end the way we imagined or hoped for…

I might NOT reach that milestone of 300 roller coasters this year…

Natural hopes can be dashed and disappointed at a moment’s notice.

But here’s the VERY good news: 

Supernatural Hope never disappoints. The theological VIRTUE of Hope that we receive through our baptism into Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection… never fails us.

That’s what St. Paul is talking about in our second reading today when he says: “Hope does not disappoint.”

Sacred Scripture says that Hope is the “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” It is a guarantee!!!

We’ve heard and believed the story of salvation — we have chosen to place all our faith and trust in the Storyteller… Now Hope is the guarantee, it’s what assures us… that we actually know how this story ends.

We know that God wins. We know that the Gospel triumphs.

And YET… we also know… that the story isn’t over yet. For hope to really still be hope, there needs to be something yet to be attained… something to look forward to! “Hope that is seen is not hope,” St. Paul tells us elsewhere in the Scriptures.

The Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper once wrote that hope is “the proper virtue of the ‘not yet.’”

What does he mean by that?

Well, simply put — we’re “not yet” saints in heaven, right?

But we’re also “not yet” doomed to Hell either… 

So… in that little space of not-yet possessing the end of our personal story — hope remains!

Hopelessness is whenever we decide that the story is already done and finished. That we are actually already experiencing, already possessing the final outcome.

The most obvious form of this… is despair.

Despair is when we assume that we’ve already lost. That the world is already ruined beyond repair. That our behavior is never going to change. That we can never be healed… never freed from our bad habits, never be holy. That God will never listen to us. That we will never have the relationship we want to have with Him.

Despair is not of God… And we need to reject it.

In fact, let’s go ahead and renounce despair in the name of Jesus:

“In the Name of Jesus, I repent of and renounce all despair.”

“In the Name of Jesus, I declare the Truth that there is still hope.”

AMEN.

Despair has no place in our lives as Christians. The story isn’t over for us yet, or for anybody else for that matter!

Which brings us to our beautiful Gospel this weekend — the famous story of the woman at the well.

I wonder what she was hoping for the day that Jesus met her there?

Was she hoping to just be left alone? For a little peace and quiet?

Was she hoping to just get her water real quick, and go home without being noticed?

Or… was she hoping for something more? Something deeper?

Because I think deep down, she was actually hoping for an encounter.

In the Old Testament, wells were always places of encounter — more specifically, they were places where you met your future spouse!!!

Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac… and the servant discovered Rebekah at a well.

Jacob met Rachel at a well while she was tending her father’s sheep.

Moses met his wife Zipporah at a well while she was doing the same.

And so in our Gospel we meet a woman who has been searching for a spouse, searching for love over and over and over. As Jesus points out later on in their conversation, she has had 5 husbands, and the man she was with right now was actually not her lawful husband.

And so here is this woman whose endless search up to this point had been so deeply disappointing — This woman had been let down so many times — she must have been at the point of despair.

But that’s when Jesus… just asks her for a drink.

“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” She asks… She’s skeptical. She doesn’t trust him at first…

“If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’” Jesus replies, “you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

What’s the meaning of this?

It means — that Jesus… the True Bridegroom of our souls… had not lost hope for her. 

He had NOT given up or despaired over her! He was still seeking her — still pursuing her. Still wooing her to come back to Him!

He asks her for a drink! He hopes for a drink!

From the Cross, Jesus looked at the whole mass of humanity, all the lost souls, and He said:

“I thirst.”

“I thirst to belong to them… and for them to belong to Me.”

“I yearn for them to have abundant life.”

Why?

Because He still sees hope in us. He sees that, yes… we’re “not yet” perfect, but He intends to make us perfect! Make us HOLY.

Can we still see that hope in ourselves?

There’s a great scene in Lord of the Rings, where they’re all preparing for a big battle — and they all know that they’re hopelessly outnumbered by the orcs. Aragorn is down in the armory, where everyone is picking out swords and shields for the battle… and he picks up an old, battered sword. He looks at it with obvious disappointment and throws it back on top of the pile… You can just feel the sinking despair of this moment!!!

But just a few scenes later, Aragorn notices a young teenaged boy who is now carrying that same exact battered old sword. He turns to the boy with compassion and he asks if he could look at the blade.

The boy hands the sword over and says: “The men are saying that we will not live out the night. They say that it is hopeless.”

Aragorn only looks back in silence, and then tests the sword… swinging it back and forth a couple of times. 

He then declares: “This is a good sword,” and hands it back to the boy, saying: “There is always hope.”

And you know what? I think sometimes we can see ourselves as that battered old sword. We feel thrown away and inadequate. We feel dirty. We feel like we’re wasting our time even trying to fight. That’s why that woman at the well was all alone… she was an outcast. The rest of the world had despaired of her… and perhaps she had despaired even of herself. 

She had sort of resigned herself to a life of chasing down natural hopes… staying thirsty. Staying unsatisfied all the time.

But when Jesus looked at her — He saw hope.

When He looks at us —when he looks at YOU, He says: “This is a good sword!”

He looked at that woman at the well — and He saw, not her sinful past, not her limitations — I mean, he was honest about those things, of course… but He did not dwell on them. Instead, He saw the path forward. He saw her unchanging worth. And he loved her. 

God loves us unconditionally — no matter what we have done in the past. He sees our future. He sees our potential! He wants to give each of us LIVING WATERS, welling up to eternal life.

So the question is:

What are you hoping for?