Episode 082: Back to Virtue - Hope

[Music] welcome to godsplaining contemplative preachers contemporary age each week join the dominican friars as they consider all things catholic welcome to god's planning this is father jacob virgin janzik and with me today is father gregory pine from i was gonna i was gonna say from switzerland but that makes it sound like you're swiss you're not you're an american um but he's in switzerland he's american in switzerland and his name is father gregory so here he is hey hey how you doing it's uh it's my pleasure to be both american and in switzerland and i said both so that only admits of two things in a series but where i'd list further things that are pleasing to me being on this episode would be a third one so all of those things are good wow that's great that's really nice thanks so this um this lent uh we started the week before len to get in all the virtues that we wanted to get in but this lent um we are doing a sort of mini series on the virtues we're calling it back to virtue very creatively because last night we had a series on back to basics so if you are interested in sort of getting some um backtracks some older tracks in that might be something to check out the back to basics series last lantern but this line the virtues so last week was the first of the series the back to virtue back to the virtue of faith this week we're we're going to talk about the theological virtue of hope you're probably picking up a pattern i bet you can guess what next week's episode will be on uh and then there'll be four more weeks of lent so if you're pretty incisive you might be able to even guess what those four episodes would be on but we won't name them just to keep you all at the edge of your seats so this week we're going to talk about the virtue of the virtue of hope so why don't we at least start by giving um a brief introduction to what virtues are we've probably talked about this on different episodes in different contexts but just to start from the beginning from the top father gregory tell us a bit about just the virtues and their role in the christian life and then we'll talk about hope more specifically sure so one way to situate virtues is to think about all the different means that god gives us to enjoy uh or to kind of come to enjoy life with him forever in heaven so you can think about like you know the lord takes human flesh so the incarnation is a kind of means whereby we return to god and he gives us the church he gives us the sacraments but there are also these kind of interior dimensions of that beatific life that the lord gives us while here on earth that come to full fruition full term in heaven namely grace which is like health of the soul and then virtues which are um yeah i would say they are you know kind of graced perfections whereby our minds and our hearts and our emotions are kind of trained so that they um act more perfectly and then you can think about like the gifts of the holy spirit as well and we've talked about those on past episodes but you can think about it as like okay the kingdom of god you know is present among us the lord jesus christ takes human flesh and that has an effect right so it transforms us interiorly so it's not just like something that happens over there something that happens without but it has a real transformative effect on our interior lives and virtues are one of those effects so that'd be like the big picture and then we can get into talking about like what they actually do so grace is kind of like health of the whole soul so it makes you a good person uh it makes you not only a good person but it makes you to begin to live the life of god himself and then the virtues they kind of get into all the different nooks and crannies of our interior life so you know with our minds we can play host to the virtue of faith which we talked about last week right uh and then with our hearts we can play host to the virtues of hope and charity for instance but you could name other things besides and effectively what the virtues do is they they make you good and they make you to act well so they change you as an individual they change you as a human being so they they heal and they elevate those powers but they also are for acting so their principles or their habits of of operation and i know that i just said some words that probably need further definition so back to you here we go yeah so the often or sometimes i think when we start to think about the virtues um particularly the the cardinal virtues or like you know prudence temperance fortitude justice uh it's easy to think of them in terms of things that we need to get you know i need to i need to work on on prudence i need to get more prudence in my life and in a sense that's kind of right because we can talk about growth in the virtues and we'll talk about growth in the virtue of hope a little later on but in but that doesn't really describe what the virtues are as father gregory was saying they they'd dispose us to act in a particular way well in the virtues in in good ways um so there there are less of things that we sort of need to grab in the spiritual life it's not like what was that a couple years was it a couple years ago um the that pokemon game where you like what was it you know what i'm talking about pokemon go is that it i was gonna say it but i didn't think that was it so now i sound more ridiculous yeah it's not we're not doing that in the spiritual life to catch the virtues or to catch grace or that kind of thing it's it's not a hunch for them but really we we should think of the virtues as the the sort of way by which we are able to act so a prudent person acts prudently because they're disposed to and they're ready to make prudent decisions when when the situation demands um and it's it's in that sort of transformation through grace uh that we begin to act good um in a good way but more importantly or not more importantly but more explicitly we begin to act like christ it's really important to keep in mind that in the goal of the perfection of the christian life is not some kind of arbitrary let me just be a good person get to heaven but it's to be conformed to christ and to imitate christ and christ is the fullness of our virtue it's the fullness of virtue and therefore that that pursuit of um the virtuous life is really another way of saying the pursuit of the christian life or the pursuit of a life conformed to christ so if we if we're going to look at the virtues then as father gregory i think said right they get into like the nooks and crannies that's like an english muffin and a spiritual description they get into the nooks and crannies of our of our spiritual life and of our lives as men and women then they we can identify the virtues the whole the theological cardinal virtues which are the big seven but then all the virtues that fall under that umbrella as aiding or as perfecting those various parts of our lives so one of the categories is the theological virtues of faith hope and love faith open charity we i guess usually from saint paul that trope ends with love but i think it's better to say charity because it it distinguishes so faith hope and charity um so getting closer to hope but describe for us the theological virtues why theological is it are they just they're just for theologians they're just for dominican nerds that's why exactly exactly yep can't be shared amongst others um so when when describing the virtues it's helpful to class them into different groups because that gives us a better sense of the divisions right it gives us kind of a better sense of how we can go about you know like organizing them as it were not just like interiorly in our hearts but um but so that we have a better grasp of the different divisions so you can think about dividing the virtues based on where they come from okay so some of them we acquire which is to say like you perform an action any number of times and as a result of that repeated action you get habituated right to act in a particular way and i mean a virtue is just it's a good habit right so it's a it's a habit of mind or heart whereby you act stably or permanently for the good right and you're able to choose that good easily promptly and joyfully so uh when one becomes virtuous it's not like you get you know like stronger and stronger or you learn more and more rules for life it's you actually come to delight in the very things that represent you know you're good as a human being or your perfection okay so when we acquire a virtue it's like the the good has greater and greater sway over us because we've come to encounter it so many times but other virtues can be infused as how we'd refer to them uh infuse the word infusion you know you recognize it from um what are those things called that people sell and you like rub them on the bottom of your feet and they cure colds essential oils yep you're like gross never use that description again right so everyone's got an essential oil infuser uh [Music] i'm killing myself right now stay with me um okay so uh infused comes from the latin word in food array which means to pour into okay so you pour your essential oils into the little distribution tray and god pours certain virtues into your life i had to go back to it one more time um so one of the reasons for which we call the theological virtues theological is because they are infused by god okay so they have theos god as their source but lots of virtues have god as their source so when you're baptized god pours into your life prudence and justice and fortitude and temperance and things like that so the theological virtues aren't necessarily distinguished by the fact that they're given by god rather by the fact that they have god for their object so what does that mean object that's kind of like technical and jargony say more okay i was hoping you would ask um well certain virtues have as their object like our own passions so like temperance is about modifying your sense appetite and fortitude is about kind of moderating your fear or your lack of daring in certain situations so those are those are kind of about yeah just fixing up your interior life justice considers action specifically actions towards other people and okay you see where this is going well the theological virtues actually attain to god which is huge because in the ordinary course we're kind of limited or one might even say imprisoned by our nature in the sense that we can't really go beyond what we as human beings are capable of but the theological virtues give us a foothold or a handhold or a toehold or some kind of hold they give us a hold in heaven and by acts of faith hope and charity we actually reach god by god's own gift so god gives us those virtues so that we can communicate with him in a way that's direct um in a way that's uh theological the your whole essential oil bit reminded me of a little story so i'm going to tell it real quick because um i feel compelled to so i i guess it was a couple years ago i was we weren't together at this point in summer projects it was the year before that so i was going to say i'm not going to say where i already said it summer projects and we were we had to make a dash across like the campus to go to a talk but it was pouring rain so uh we were a group of us were running to a car we got in a car and someone said something about like don't crash the car in this like torrential downpour or whatever and i just said don't worry i have my oils on me meaning like the oil sick to anoint people if we got in a crash and we were dying and when i said don't worry i have my oils on me the uh the charming young lady who was driving the car looked up in a rearview mirror and she said essential and i said no i don't carry essential oils on me so that was great so whatever that's always what i think of a priest caring as oils just those different scented oils right so back to the theological virtues back to hope itself so theological virtues they direct us or their object is is god himself so that means that through the theological virtues through being conformed uh to these virtues of faith hope and love we are actually directing our our very selves to god himself so faith if you tune into last week's episode faith is that virtue by which or through which we we believe god and in god um and accept as a way or take all of the things that that are revealed to us by god it's how we come to know god it's an intellectual virtue in that way charity well you'll have to tune in to next week's episode to hear about charity but this week we're talking about hope and hope is that virtue by which it's that theological virtue that's infused by god into into our will not our mind but our will by which we trust with complete certitude in the attainment of eternal life and not only eternal life but the means by which we are able to attain eternal life so it's a matter of trusting in the things of god of hoping in the things of god and the things that he promises so if we begin to think of hope there not just like i hope that father jacob bertrand is going to stop talking or that father gregory is going to stop making terrible examples and talking about like the bottom of his feet uh you know but but we're talking about the things that the the final end for which we are made um so i don't know say more about that elaborate on that flesh that out in in simpler terms i think that um this i don't know if i've ever said anything in simpler terms but here we go um i think that um it's it's cool to think about these objects as content rich so sometimes when you say like just believe it suggests to somebody that there's no real content to faith it's just a matter of taking a leap into the void and hoping that you find god at the bottom of your freefall but what one says when one has you know the actor excuse me when one makes an act of faith or one one has the virtue of faith is that god is true right so god is first truth and that god speaks so god we can rely upon god we can trust god to represent his own interior life in a way that corresponds with reality so by faith we rely upon the witness of god the testimony of god because if anyone is competent to tell us about life eternal it's him um so but but it's not just like a probabilistic argument where he's saying like all right you know if anyone's going to know about it it's god so i may as well put all my eggs in the god basket and here we go no it's like one actually has access to that because god has spoken and god gives us to know by the virtue of faith well with hope there's also a content to it again one speaks about hope in terms of like in similar terms as one speaks about trust especially since the 16th century but you know we we think about excuse me as as one speaks about faith one uses similar language about like trust or reliance or things like that but in hope why can we trust in god or why can we hope in god well it's because he is who he says he is and specifically we kind of hone in on those attributes of omnipotence and mercy so god can do what he intends to do and god underwrites all of his acts in creation with mercy so so god you know it says in first timothy 2 4 that he desires that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth all right so he's he's made himself known um he's made himself known to be for us and we can hope that those promises which are you know evident in the scriptures uh which seem to apply to all in fact apply to me right or to you because god has said so so hope um places great stock in god's own self-revelation and it clings to that right it holds firm it holds fast to that because again because god is who he says he is and because god acts in a way that's consistent with who he is so again it's not just a matter of saying like you got to have faith or um you know hope in the lord and leave everything else to you know those who have the confidence to make further determinations it's like no we can we actually know something about god and by virtue of the fact that we can know something about god it actually changes the way that we live our lives um and it marks them you know deeply it impresses upon them a you know a god-like shape well now that we've done this sort of dominican uh scholastic stepwise into hope you know start with virtues with theological virtues with essential oils and then into hope we're going to take a quick break uh and when we return we'll talk about living the virtue of hope how to grow in the virtue of hope and uh how to i guess incorporate that in sounds like a brownie mix but incorporate that into your into your spiritual life so uh stay stay tuned and we will be right back you are listening to god's planning visit us at godsplaining.org to listen to our episodes shop our store and donate to our podcast all gifts go to improving the podcast and bringing the gospel to more listeners thanks for your support welcome back to godsplainings father jacob bertrand here with father gregory and on this episode of our back to virtue lenten series we are talking about the virtue of hope uh the theological virtue of hope that unites us or that directs us to the things that god promises namely eternal life eternal beatitude so we've kind of laid out the laid out the scene right with what is a virtue how does it how does it kind of function how does it function in our lives what are the theological virtues as though as distinguished from the cardinal virtues theological unites to god directly that god is their object if you tune into last week you learned a little bit about faith that intellectual that that virtue that impacts the intellect now we're talking about hope that virtue that impacts the will um so i think right there is perhaps a place to to to stop and talk about how what do what do we mean when we say a virtue affects the will affects our will uh what do we mean by that how does that kind of work into our kind of just daily living as a christian our attempts to live as a christian yeah so i think that um will right obviously is the seat of choice and in choosing one determines not only what he or she is going to do but also who he or she is uh going to become i stalled out because i forgot what the subject of the sentence was and i wanted to make sure that i had subject verb complement agreement i'm killing it over here okay um so not only does one choose what you know he or she wants but also who he or she is to become so there's the sense like with every with every choice there's an element of the way in which it contributes to or somehow distracts from your ultimate destiny so this is this is always present in choice and and choice is always end oriented uh and by that i mean that you always have the end in mind when you make a decision and if you don't it kind of undermines the decision or it undermines the integrity of the decision so like we're both assigned in washington dc at the demanding house of studies and say you know like you pull out of the parking lot and you want to go somewhere let's say for instance that you want to go visit father patrick in providence why you would want to do that is beyond me but let's say you want to do that um then you would take a right out of the parking lot you'd go towards the bolt watch parkway pick up 95 north etc let's say that you wanted to visit father joseph anthony again i mean that's on you uh yeah but if you want to do that you have to go to charlottesville you take a left out of the driveway you get on 395 south blah blah blah 66 29 yada yada okay but if you don't know who you're going to visit you you can't you can't leave the driveway right there's no you could be like ah what a driveway but that at the end of your moral act so in in in all human choice the end has this um yeah this kind of governing or this kind of structuring shape to it uh i don't know how best to express that but basically the end is is of great importance and it gives shape to everything else that follows so too with eternal life so one of the ways in which st thomas refers to uh men and women is as chelico as heaven dwellers so that's that's just who we are that's our identity and that's our destiny and that has to give concrete shape to all of our decision making and hope is the virtue which kind of like steadies us for that enterprise because truth be told it's really really difficult to live always and everywhere for heaven because life is sad it's overwhelming it's distracting it's all kinds of things which would otherwise you know deter us from that end but hope is what again shores us up in our resolve so that we can actually persevere in being who we are and in coming to enjoy what we are meant to enjoy yeah i think so often when um it's easy it's always easy to lament things and it's always it's kind of like a boring trope to sort of trot out the um the ways in which kind of like modern contemporary millennials are bad at everything um which is true i mean i'm a millennial so i can say it but you know bad at relationships bad at responsibility bad at not complaining you know all these kind of things i mean there's some truth in all of it but there's whatever they're just kind of boring tropes um but it does give give me pause to sort of consider like what what is kind of an underlying current in in um in the world in our culture with people uh and i think one of uh one of those sort of foundational things that that that defines us and this is perhaps a little pessimistic a little augustine augustinian here um is is this sort of lack of hope um and and if we think about it in in the way that father gregory just described that hope uh orients us towards towards that end there's when we don't understand this this sort of heaven word reality that we are created for and created in it's very hard to have hope real hope in things because we don't have our eye on the end we don't even have our mind or a concept of the end um so i think if if i were to sort of identify a virtue needed for for now and and i think that you know the past year in ways through the pandemic has really brought this out that the virtu virtue needed for now is this rekindling of hope um this this sort of reunion of sorts with the virtue of hope because um but for the end of the virtue of hope but for eternal eternal life like what's the point you know what's the point of striving for the christian life i mean you might as well go do whatever you want and then you know like be nothing and be miserable and you know like but for eternal beatitude there's no reason to live the christian life there's no reason to struggle to to grow in virtue there's no reason to be you know uh to pursue a vocation there's no re except for like the immediate gratification um of those desires so i think it's important for us if we're looking to grow in the christian life and to grow in our relationship with christ to have um to rekindle to yeah the virtue of hope in our lives to pray for that because remember it's an infused something that's infused so we have to ask for it and um we also you know from from faith this is where the virtues begin to sort of exist together that we know we trust that god is who he says he is and that he answers the prayers so when we pray for hope we can have confidence that that the lord sends the holy spirit and hope and all these things so with that being the case i guess it's the case because i said so but for the purposes of of of this podcast that being the case um let's talk a little bit about how it is that we can we can grow in hope how it is that we well how do you grow in a sort of infused virtue something that's given how do you grow in a gift that's that even might be a good place to start yeah i think everyone's had the experience of being given a gift uh by someone that you like and hoping that that gift keeps coming right so you have like a favorite coffee shop and you have like a great aunt who wants to give you something um but she knows that the last time she gave you money you turned it into the prior you know and she's like but i want to give you something you're like you can pray for me you can have master's offer for me she's like but if i gave you a gift certificate of this coffee shop would you use it she's like yeah i'd spend it on the brothers but i use and she's pumped all right so she gives you this gift but in order in order for her to keep giving the gift you have to express to the fact one that you're using it and two that you're grateful if you give if you begin to like expect it just to be given because you're a swell fella right that's gonna it's gonna turn her off to it um or if you uh cease using it right then she's gonna get wind of that and again cut you off so the key thing with hope is that you have to use the means that god appoints and you have to express your gratitude for them and i think that it's uh it's really helpful to start there because it's not overly complicated right so the hopeful person looks towards eternal life yes but the hopeful person looks more immediately towards the means that lead there so prayer sacrament specifically the sacrament of confession you know good christian friendships adopting penances studying the faith things like that simple stuff that we've talked about wait a second did i just list five of the six back to basics from last year's lenten series incredible it's almost like this is a motif tool episode they're like stale donuts you know like gotta get rid of them go to last lent get those episodes exactly you guys will love it um right so we have to use the means that god appoints and it's characteristic of the hopeful person that he or she will use those means consistently right um and so i think that yeah you can talk about all kinds of life hacks tips tricks strat and gyms and ploys but but but it basically just comes back to the basics he says somewhat repetitively prayer sacraments friendship studying the faith adopting penances it doesn't have to be wild it doesn't have to be a reinvention of the faith it just has to be working within the bounds that the lord himself has uh has set out yeah what do you think yes i think so much growth so much uh so much of our growth in the spiritual life and in the life of virtues is is um well i think here of father jacques philippe the spiritual author his line i think it's in his book interior freedom where he actually talks as a beautiful section on the theological virtues um but he um he says that um you know like being a christian i'm kind of prefacing it but it's it's not so much about what we do but about um about making room for what god can do for sort of moving the the sort of uh crud out of our lives the la you know sin and attachment to evil things bad things less than good things um and then availing ourselves of the means that are offered to us to grow closer to god to grow closer to christ i mean we can't demand that of god we can't say you know christ come over here and you know help me levitate it's not going to happen that's not you know you can't demand that of god but what we can do is we avail ourselves of the means to sort of to to let god work um to receive his grace and to allow that to work on us and through those things that father gregory just listed um through availing ourselves of the sacraments through um finding time for prayer that quiet time that regular time that training ourselves and those disciplines and and this is particularly what lent is for to kind of rekindle that in our lives and bring that to the fore and i think too that it's it's helpful um it's helpful because the virtue the virtuous thing is always the mean even with the infused virtues it's always kind of sailing between the the pre the proverbial cilla and charybdis of um you know the pitfalls of life so so too with hope that we it's good to be conscious of um where hope goes wrong not just become i don't know not to become kind of like ocd about am i doing am i doing bad hope or i've been doing hope badly but uh just to be aware and i think that pointing out devices that are attached or a couple of them are are helpful and that's what st thomas does so i'm not inventing this it's it's good practice um to do it so two of them presumption despair they either the two pitfalls that that we have to sail between when we're talking about when we're talking about the virtue of hope um yeah uh probably presumption introduce us yeah presumption would be kind of thinking that you've got it on your own so without the grace of god i can do uh you know whatever is required of me and it's not that big of a deal so no need to talk up this whole grace thing but in reality we can't do anything in the supernatural order except god give us to you know except god give us the grace to accomplish it um so there's despair on the one excuse me there's presumption on the one side wow preview of coming attractions and on the other side there's despair um which is saying like yeah i mean these these beautiful promises that you've made lord are really high-flying and very attractive but i just can't see how they apply in my own life um and as a result of which i just yeah i have to set them aside because if i think too much about it it just depresses me um but i think the thing that's characteristic about the hopeful person is that the hopeful person is on the way and content to be on the way so there's a kind of uncertain certitude to hope someone is certain of god you know that god is omnipotent that god is merciful that god is true to his promises and that those promises apply to me but one is also uncertain of him or herself which is to say that you learn not to rely upon yourself because you know that you're weak you're fragile and that you know you can fail and if we get uncomfortable with that uncertainty that's i think when we're tempted to presumption on the one side or to despair on the other so the presumptuous pertinent person says i can't deal with the uncertainty of life i can't deal with the uncertainty of being on the way so i'm just gonna kind of um i don't know what you would say affect the certainty of those who are in heaven and then the despair-filled person says you know again i can't i can't deal with the uncertainty of life i can't deal with the uncertainty of being on the way so i'll just affect the certainty of the damned but effectively you know like what we're meant to be is to be certain of god uh and mind you that's that can be a little bit anxiety-inducing but we're meant to grow in our partaking of god's certainty with you know just like we said the simple stuff living hope on a daily basis making little acts of hope and entrusting ourselves to god in concrete small and and in particular ways yeah i think when i when i think about the hope and the kind of like you know sailing down the middle the center of the lane there and with the dangers on either side and i often think in my own life kind of like if you had like a meter like you know if you're right dead center um there there's there's the virtue but you know the meter might indicate one way or the other presumption or despair that often that meter kind of wavers between the two there are times when i think this is great my life is awesome i'm doing excellent things and then it's like oh yeah god uh that's because of god but then there are other times it's like oh my gosh this is all going wrong and you know it's never going to turn out right these kind of thing you know that kind of thing and you're there's the despair and you have to remember god again god again and so i think growing in the virtues it's not about um kind of forcing ourselves to sort of ignore kind of our weaknesses where we might be given in this case to presumption or despair but in those weaknesses when we find ourselves falling to one side or the other recognizing that and and begging god for the grace of the virtue of hope to grow in hope um begging god to be to remind us and to enkindle that desire within us for his mercy and for his forgiveness um and and i think this is for the catholic this is most lived or this is lived most expressly by by opening the door of the confessional by kneeling down and confessing confessing one's sins because it requires us to recognize you know our place before god that we're sinners before god but it also um requires us to recognize recognize our place before the devil and and and death and saying that well even though i'm a sinner relying on god's grace his mercy his his offer of salvation that you don't win the day that god's mercy is is always is always ready to heal the you know heal the the repentant sinner um so i don't you know during lent as we're as we're crawling through the weeks and getting closer to easter if you haven't made a confession during the season think of that pray about that and and ask for the you know ask for the grace the inspiration to to grow and hope and to move towards towards that it's a yeah i think a really beautiful thing boom it is a beautiful thing and i would say don't even bother thinking or praying about it just just do it all right there you go see he's he'll tell you he'll tell you more directly i try to be nice he doesn't care but i can be more pushy because i'm like you know 4 500 miles away so they won't come knocking on mind or they'll come knocking on there but you can do you know virtual confessions right over zoom no dude you can't do it it's got jokes over there all right well we're kind of we are hitting the the end of our time for today so um thanks for tuning in thanks for listening i would encourage you as we already have uh to to tune into this to this back to virtue series that we're having over lent so last week faith and today hope will carry on with the third of the theological virtues next week and then into the cardinal virtues so sort of uh i don't know overture to to the virtuous life um thanks so much for listening as always with our kind of end of episode plug be sure to share like comment help us in those algorithms share the episode with somebody who you think might benefit from it we are certainly praying for you during the season of lent pray for us too feel free to give a few alms if you'd like patreon on our patreon page check out our merch all those good things are available to everyone so until next time on behalf of our dear father gregory in switzerland uh and me here in dc uh take care and god bless thanks for listening to god's planning a work of the dominican friars of the province of saint joseph follow us on facebook twitter and instagram leave a review on your podcast app and visit us at godsplaining.org

Channel: Godsplaining Podcast

Views: 1,244

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: catholic, dominican friars, theology, philosophy, religion, faith, order of preachers, godsplaining, seekers, Truth, preaching, questions, searching, prayer, meditation, frgregorypine, gregorypine, religiousvocations, lent, catholicpriest, dominicanhouseofstudies, opeast, church, #frjacobbertand

Id: 7cZWMP0ropM

Length: 34min 47sec (2087 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021