For many people “the world is not enough” is the title of a James Bond movie. At a higher level, these same words capture very well a fundamental teaching Pope Benedict has addressed in his new encyclical letter Spe Salvi, “on Christian hope.”

The Holy Father says that as Christians we are certainly committed to the many good things humanity hopes for at the beginning of the New Year, that is, to improving this world, to making it more as God created it to be. During Advent we heard the voice of John the Baptist calling us to prepare the way of the Lord by living a life of love, justice and mercy, of moral and ethical responsibility. We need the greater and lesser hopes for a better life in this world to keep us going day by day.

However, Pope Benedict goes to the heart of Christian faith when he says these earthly hopes are not enough. They are not enough without what he calls the “great hope,” which must surpass everything else.

“This great hope,” the pope writes (Spe Salvi, no. 31), “can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope.

“God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; His Kingdom is present wherever He is loved and wherever His love reaches us.

“His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is ‘truly’ life.”

What the Holy Father is saying is that everything comes from God and will return to Him. Only God’s Being, His justice and mercy, His loving plan for the eternal happiness of those who seek Him in repentance and faith, make it possible for us to have hope in a blessed future above and beyond what we see and experience in this life.

One of the great themes of Pope Benedict’s teaching is the absolute priority of God. This priority is often rejected or given only lip-service in modern societies whose origin and development were intimately tied to Christianity. Increasingly people live “as if God did not exist,” that is, the God revealed in the Bible, and it’s hard to know whether this arises from presumption or despair, which are the two great sins against hope.

Whether a person despairs of God or presumes of Him, the question is the same: “why should I change my life and my ways?” A person guilty of despair does not believe it will do any good, and a person guilty of presumption believes that God blesses everybody and everything, asking nothing of us that has any decisive eternal consequences. In either case the call to “repent and believe” is rejected, and so the gift of hope is rejected, because in the words of Benedict, “the person who has hope lives differently; the person who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.” (Spe Salvi, no. 2)

Spe Salvi raises some challenging questions. Today have we replaced hope in eternal life with hope in this present life? Hope in the kingdom of God with hope in the kingdom of man? Hope in redemption with hope in earthly progress?

To some, these questions may seem exaggerated. Consider, however, the following:
When it comes to personal life, for many Catholics today attendance at sports events, or a trip to the mall, or a leisurely brunch are all considered equal and even more desirable alternatives to worshipping God at Sunday Mass, which is an obligation we have to God as His creatures in obedience to the Third Commandment.

When it comes to social life, in the past religious faith inspired many of the greatest artistic works and cultural institutions in human history. The local cathedral or church and the rhythm of the liturgical year brought people together in the family and in society. Today, even Christmas has been grossly commercialized and stripped of much of its Christian content. And reflective of material priorities, the shopping mall or sometimes even the gambling casinos are increasingly the real hubs of local energies and social activity.

When it comes to moral life, our nation’s founding documents make frequent reference to God, and until recently our society lived by accepted moral norms grounded in God-given reason. A common moral law was acknowledged which, over and above cultural differences, enables human beings to come to a common understanding regarding the most important aspects of good and evil, justice and injustice. Today, even the life of unborn babies is not protected, and something as fundamental as marriage is no longer thought to have any established meaning and purpose, but can be redefined at will.

This list could go on and on. Do we really believe that “the world is not enough” or are we limiting our vision and our hope to this world alone? This is a question of fundamental importance both for time and eternity, as the Holy Father makes clear.

I would like to leave you with this challenge from an encyclical of which I have only scratched the surface: “Hope in a Christian sense is always hope for others as well. It is an active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving towards the “perverse end.” It is an active hope also in the sense that we keep the world open to God.” (no. 34)

May this be our guiding principle, our New Year’s resolution for 2008: to be instruments of God for the hope of the world and of one another.

Finally, I offer a heartfelt thank you to the many people who sent me Christmas and New Year’s greetings. Although I cannot acknowledge them all in writing, I have read your Christmas cards and notes, and am filled with gratitude for your thoughtfulness, prayers and support for me as your bishop. God bless you with a very happy New Year.

+MOST REVEREND LEONARD P. BLAIR
  BISHOP OF TOLEDO