Hope: Not naive optimism: Homily for Sunday, November 2, 2025

We often sell hope short. We think of a present, or something we want in a little while. Short term optimism. But the virtue of hope is really about our hope in salvation. Our hope that Jesus can forgive our sins and hope that we can be saved. Readings for Today.

Hope: Not naive optimism

In many ways, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a letter written for the solemnity of the faithful departed, often referred to as “all souls.” There are so many wonderful lines of Scripture in his letter to the Romans.

Hope does not disappoint. What can separate us from the love of God? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.

Some of these words from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans we just heard. Hope and resurrection are important concepts for people of faith. Let’s spend some time exploring both. Sometimes when we think of the word “hope,” what comes to mind is a naive optimism about the future. “I hope I get this present. I hope I get a promotion. I hope I pass this test.”

But when St. Paul speaks about hope, this is not the type of hope he is referring to with the concept of hope he writes about. For hope is much more than naive optimism. Hope for each one of us as Catholics is a hope that God’s promise of salvation will be true for us. It is true hope and is directed toward the future, but not a future like today or tomorrow or even next month. Our hope is about forever.

Hope as naive optimism does not equip us for the world in which we live, but because of our baptism we are equipped with what we need to live in a world filled with so much evil. And as the second reading reminds us, the certainty of our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is our assurance that Jesus won the victory over sin, evil, and death. And this assurance is most important in a world where it seems that sin has won, where evil is victorious, where death has conquered.

Let me cite an important and a timely example. Catholics believe that every human being has a right to eat. Catholics have numerous opportunities where they turn beliefs into action. Catholic Relief Services, Caritas International, and right here in our own parish, the St. Margaret of Costello Center.

And in the face of uncertainty around SNAP benefits, we need to hear anew that call from Pope Leo. His apostolic exhortation, “Delexi te,” is well worth reading in its entirety. It can be found on the Vatican website.

In this document, started by Pope Francis but made his own by Pope Leo, very powerful claims are made about the poor and our faith. Here are some examples. “Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, ‘The poor you will always have with you,’ also promises his disciples, ‘I am with you always.’ We likewise think of his saying, ‘Just as you did to to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.'”

This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation. Contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, Jesus continues to speak to us. In this same document, Pope Leo quotes St. John Chrysostom, a church father who reminds us in no uncertain terms that we have a special obligation to the poor. He says, “Affirming with crystal clarity that if the faithful do not encounter Christ in the poor who stand at the door, they will not be able to worship him even at the altar.” He continues, “What advantage does Christ gain if the sacrificial table is laden with golden vessels while he himself dies of hunger in the person of the poor? Feed the hungry first and only afterward adorn the altar with what remains.”

He understood the Eucharist therefore as a sacramental expression of the charity and justice that both preceded and accompanied it. That same charity and justice should perpetuate the Eucharist through love and attention to the poor. Consequently, writes Pope Leo, charity is not optional but a requirement of true worship.

Our baptism sets us on a destiny and journey where we recognize that we must first recognize that our own baptism deeply and fundamentally changes us. And each time we come to Mass, this meeting of heaven and earth, we worship Jesus in the Eucharist. And it is through Jesus in the Eucharist that we as the people of God become his body.

In the other option for today’s reading, St. Paul tells us that hope does not disappoint. The document written by Pope Francis opening the Jubilee Year of Hope is titled using these words from St. Paul. Pope Francis writes, “Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love.”

The virtue of hope to which St. Paul is referring is grounded in the resurrection of Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” And this quote reminds us of a powerful obligation we all have.

We need to pray for the dead. Not because God does not already know what we need, but rather because doing so enables us to respond to God’s grace. Our prayer for the dead strengthens our hope.

St. Augustine reminds us of the importance not only of hope, but of other virtues. He writes, “Whatever our state in life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely to believe, to hope, and to love. These are the ways in which we have hope not only for ourselves, but also for the dead. I end with these words from Pope Francis. Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials. Founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life.

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