The virtue of hope is based upon the virtue of faith.  Faith informs us of the promises of God, and that He is all-powerful and faithful in fulfilling His promises.  Without faith Christian hope would not be possible.  This the Apostle Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Corinthians, in plain words:  “Faith,” he writes, “is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. xi, i).  Hope is really, therefore, an active faith in the mercy and generosity of God.  Christian hope is just as necessary for salvation as faith.  “For we are saved by hope.”  Thus the Apostle writes in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. viii, 24).  Hence, when we lose hope we forfeit our salvation.

Christian hope is in part desire, in part confidence.  It is a lively desire for eternal happiness, for the possession of God and for the means which aid us in gaining salvation.  It contains in itself a heartfelt desire for forgiveness of sins, and for liberation from the punishment due to sins.  It includes an ardent longing for a virtuous Christian life.  It is that hunger and thirst for justice of which Christ speaks in the eight Beatitudes.  As God is the supreme good, combining every other good, so our desire for the blessed possession of God must be the sincerest, indeed, the sole, desire of our hearts.  All other things we may desire only on God’s account, and only in so far as they are the means to help us to the possession of God.  Whoever experiences this desire will zealously pray for all things; he will be a man of prayer.

Christian hope is not only desire, but also confidence.  God has promised us forgiveness of our sins and the grace to do the good that is required of us.  He has promised us after a Christian life the eternal happiness of heaven.  He is ready to fulfil His promises.  The fulfillment of the divine promise depends, however, upon our own co-operation, upon our sincere good-will, upon our co-operation with grace.  Our confidence must, therefore, never become presumption.  The Apostle admonishes us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.  St. Francis de Sales calls confidence in God and distrust in ourselves the two balancing poles by the help of which we are enabled to keep our equilibrium.  To distrust ourselves, and to have the fullest trust in God, this is the essence of Christian hope.

Christian hope is an essential condition for eternal happiness.  By hope we anticipate life eternal.  It is to us a pledge and a foretaste, and when we shall pass into eternity with this living hope, our hope will be transformed into possession of that which we have hoped for the possession of God, the supreme good.