No, hope should be sensible and reasonable.  It must keep the middle between two extremes.  The measure of our hope should reasonably be the measure of our efforts, for he who wishes the end wishes the means.  Of course God will make due allowances for our frailties, but that is His business, not ours; and we have no right to say just how far that mercy will go.  Even though we lead the lives of saints, we shall stand in need of much mercy.  Prudence tells us to do all things as though it all depended upon us alone; then God will make up for the deficiencies.

CHAPTER XXVII.  LOVE OF GOD.

Once upon a time, there lived people who pretended that nothing had existence outside the mind, that objects were merely fictions of the brain; thus, when they gave a name to those objects, it was like sticking a label in the air where they seemed to be.  The world is not without folks who have similar ideas concerning charity, to whom it is a name without substance.  Scarcely a Christian but will pretend that he has the virtue of charity, and of course one must take his word for it, and leave his actions and conduct out of all consideration.  With him, to love God is to say you do, whether you really do or not.  This is charity of the “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal” assortment.

To be honest about it, charity or love of God is nothing more or less, practically, than freedom from, and avoidance of, mortal sin.  “If any one say, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, (or otherwise sins) he is a liar.”  Strong language, but straight to the point!  The state of grace is the first, fundamental, and essential condition to the existence of charity.  Charity and mortal sin are two things irreducibly opposed, uncompromisingly antagonistic, eternally inimical.  There is no charity where there is sin; there is no sin where there is charity.  That is why charity is called the fulfilment of the law.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that humble folks of the world, striving against temptation and sin to serve the Master, imagine they can hardly succeed.  True, they rarely offend and to no great extent of malice, but they envy the lot of others more advantageously situated, they think, nearer by talent and state to perfection, basking in the sunshine of God’s love.  Talent, position, much exterior activity, much supposed goodness, are, in their eyes, titles to the kingdom, and infallible signs of charity.  And then they foolishly deplore their own state as far removed from that perfection, because forsooth their minds are uncultured, their faith simple, and their time taken up with the drudgery of life.

They forget that not this gift or that work or anything else is necessary.  One thing alone is necessary, and that is practical love of God.  Nothing counts without it.  And the sage over his books, the wonder-worker at his task, the apostle in his wanderings and labors, the very martyr on the rack is no more sure of having charity than the most humble man, woman or child in the lowest walks of life who loves God too much to offend Him.  It is not necessary to have the tongues of men and angels, or faith that will move mountains, or the fortitude of martyrs; charity expressed in our lives and deeds rates higher than these.