We continue on our journey together as Pilgrims of Hope in this Jubilee Year with these posts. Pope Benedict XVI is our teacher through Spe Salvi, his letter on hope written in 2007.

In my read today, Pope Benedict XVI presented a quote from Saint Augustine who said, “The Gospel terrifies me.” I was intrigued by this quote. It comes from one of Augustine’s sermons.

We live in a time where we build structures to fulfill the hopes we have within us. We look at our screens and see how information is readily available to help us unpack our dreams and visions at the swipe of a finger. We have all the technologies that fulfill our desires. Yet, we can remain complete individuals in our self-fulfillment. There is something that lacks because these hopes are temporal. The structures we have built through science and technology have their limits. Man ultimately is wired for hope that is eternal.

We don’t only long for life, we pine for what was asked of us at baptism: eternal life.

This eternal life is relational. Pope Benedict XVI opens up this idea:

Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live” (27).

To this point, we not only hope for any god, we hope for God who has revealed himself in Jesus. Why Jesus? Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6).

The one who died on the Cross, the one whom we contemplate this whole season of Lent, loved all humanity in his suffering. If we are in him, if all our hope is rooted in him, then we are truly alive because we recognize our relationship with others centered in the Lord. The one next to me, the one who I may disagree with, my enemy – is my brother, is my sister in Jesus. It is only Jesus who redeems us. To be redeemed gives us the certainty of being loved by God.

This is where Augustine’s phrase plays out in his terror of the Gospel. When we live the story of Christianity in all its intensity, depth, and joy we recognize that it produces a healthy fear “which prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass on the hope we have in common” (29).

God is the foundation of all our hopes. God’s kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever that love reaches us. If we are rooted in his love we find steady perseverance. The love that pours out of his Sacred Heart is the guarantee of the eternal life we can vaguely see in this world yet know in the depths of our being that it is the reality of our deepest self.

This is our hope. It is rooted in Christ. It is the holy fear in which we recognize we are pilgrims together.