For all you good Catholics out there, Pope Benedict XVI talked about hope and faith recently, in a Mass to mark the beginning of Lent. Some of the comments he made were:
“Prayer also nourishes hope, because nothing other than praying with faith expresses the reality of God (being) in our life.”
Prayer is a powerful weapon with which to “victoriously face the battle against the spirit of evil,”
“Before great danger, one needs an even greater hope,” and this can only be found in the hope that comes from knowing one can rely on God for everything, he said.
Through prayer, one’s dreams and longings “are exposed to the light of the word of God,” he said, thus freeing them from hidden lies and compromises rooted in egoism. Without prayer, the human individual “ends up closed inside oneself, and the conscience, which should be God’s voice, risks reducing itself to being a mirror of the I, so that the inner conversation becomes a monologue, giving rise to thousands of self-justifications,” said the pope. It is for this reason, he said, that “without prayer there is no hope, but only illusion.”
GO POPE!
The prayerful seeking of God is an indispensable part of turning hope into faith. This is the time when God challenges our motivations and lets us know whether we have met the conditions of His will. Without this honest input from the Holy Spirit, we are not able to see beyond our own natural inclination to self. The Pope is starting to get it! Maybe he’s been reading this Blog.
The reality of the word of God must first be expressed in the heart before faith can express the reality of God to the world.