The first sentence of the next paragraph of Spe salvi offers a simple, yet profound truth that is really at the heart of the Gospel message in general, and in particular as we consider the faith amid such rapid progress in science and technology in modern times.  Pope Benedict writes: “It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love.” (SS 26)

The Holy Father notes how the human experience of falling in love has a redeeming effect in our lives, such that when one encounters love, one finds new meaning in life.  No doubt any married couple can speak about this reality, as they recall with fondness their initial encounter of love which would open the door to a new direction in life that would include the other person in the bond of matrimony, living no longer as two, but one flesh.  Even as great as this love can be, the pope acknowledges that even this type of love has limits:

But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. (ibid.)

With that in mind, the Holy Father can then conclude: “The human being needs unconditional love.” (ibid.) He uses the words of St. Paul to explain what, or rather who, this unconditional love is: 

neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38- 39)

This is always a timely message, but I think especially in light of the topic of faith and hope in the midst of our modern times.  There are so many messages that try to pull us into finding hope in things other than the unconditional love of God.  We are presented with conditional messages that promise us something if we but follow that particular path.  If you eat this type of food, you will be healthy, you will have more energy, you will delay the inevitability of death.  If you invest in this particular asset, you will be financially secure, you will have enough money to make you happy, to provide for all of your dreams.  If you engage in this exercise routine, you will stay looking young and healthy, such that others will find you attractive and worth their attention.  

These are but a few examples of some of the ideas and promises that we can be drawn into following, often to the exclusion of prioritizing the unconditional love of God in our lives.  But when we allow our lives to be rooted in His love, we are able to face whatever may come with a peace of heart that is grounded in the hope of God’s love for us – present, though sometimes hidden, in our lives now, and waiting to be fulfilled fully in eternal life.  Only in choosing the unconditional love of God can we be assured of a hope “that does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:5)

O lux beatissima, O most blessed light,
reple cordis intima fill the inmost heart
tuorum fidelium. of your faithful.

The inmost heart. Fill the inmost heart! Where is my inmost heart? What part of me is that innermost sanctuary of my existence? Many people never find that place; many never take the time and the silence to travel deep within themselves to be there and find the Lord there. 

There are excuses: “It isn’t important.” “Life is about work and getting things done – it’s about progress in the world.” “It’s too scary to go there.” “It’s not real.” “Only monks and psychologists need to worry about ‘finding that innermost place.’”

Ah, but it is real. It is important. AND – It is possible to find. If you have ever prayed in a truly heartfelt way, you have been at that place within your heart. 

But what is this innermost place? We find a strikingly beautiful, wise, and common-sense answer to this question in the document Gaudium et Spes, one of the four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council. The council Fathers describe the conscience as the innermost heart of the human being: “Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.” (GS, 16)

The core of the human being, then, is the “place” of my personality where I choose. It is where “I” am most “I.” This is the “I” who says, “I want,” “I need,” “I hope,” etc.

Who am I? 
I am (i.e. I exist)
In relationship
To THE
I AM.

At my most fundamental core, I exist as a being – a person – in relationship to other persons. And one of those other persons is the one God who is three persons who made me, knows me, loves me, and delights in being in me. This relationship with God we call prayer, friendship, sonship. With other human beings, we call it friendship, relationship, etc. 

When we ask the Holy Spirit to fill our inmost heart with his presence and his light, we are asking him to make us a prayer. In other words, we are saying, “Set us perfectly in relationship with you, O God. Make my innermost heart rest inside of you as you come rest inside of me.” Remember, St. Augustine once wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” 

This is, therefore, a petition from the very core of our humanity: “Fill our hearts! Don’t just come halfway or fill up a portion, but FILL them. Make them “replete” with your presence. Every corner, crevice, dint, and fold. Be in our hearts, O Holy Spirit.” 

When he fills our conscience, we are filled with his light, and we become free to choose the good, the true, and the beautiful. We see rightly. 

May the Holy Spirit bring that light to our inmost heart. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your Love!

Just before Christmas in 2005, still in the first year of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to the Roman Curia in which he reflected on a variety of topics, including the 40^th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council.  He was not afraid to point out that the implementation of the Council had experienced many challenges, and he asked: “Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia Offering them his Christmas Greetings, 22 December 2005) To this question he responded:

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or – as we would say today – on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit. (ibid.)

The hermeneutic that was causing confusion he called “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” which would suggest that what had come before the Council was to be left in the past, and that the Council marked a break from the past, a new springtime in the Church in which all of the old ideas and practices were thrown out and new ideas and practices replaced them.  On the other hand, the hermeneutic that was bearing fruit, helping to advance the true implementation of the Council he described in this way:

On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God. (ibid.)

I think this point is very helpful in understanding a point the Holy Father makes in Spe salvi when he writes the following:

What this means is that every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs; this task is never simply completed. Yet every generation must also make its own contribution to establishing convincing structures of freedom and of good, which can help the following generation as a guideline for the proper use of human freedom; hence, always within human limits, they provide a certain guarantee also for the future. (SS 25)

The progress of human freedom and development builds upon what has gone before us, not dismissing it as no longer relevant.  But this foundation is not so rigid that it is not open to continued growth, reform and renewal, while always maintaining that continuous connection with Jesus Christ who “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Heb 13:8) On the topic of Christian hope, the pope notes that there is much room for legitimate development, as he writes:

[W]e must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering. (ibid.)

I believe that, with the pontificate of Pope Francis, and now continuing with Pope Leo XIV, we have seen the Church acknowledging the greatness of this task, and has helped the Church to expand her horizons to spread this message of hope to the many challenges being faced in our modern world.

In labore requies, In labor, rest,
in aestu temperies in heat, temperance,
in fletu solatium. in tears, solace.

If anyone thinks that God is only for the elite, the morally perfect, or the “special” humans among us, these three lines remind us that nothing could be further from the truth. God is God for the common man, for the laborer, for the normal, for the weary, for the ordinary. Since the fall of man, the realities of labor, heat, and tears have been a part of human existence. This is our lot. We work, we labor, we sweat and weep and mourn because this life can be tough. 

How many of us, though, when we’re hard at work, whether in the form of manual labor or not, take the time to think of the presence of the Holy Spirit? How often have you paused to consider His presence with you?

He is there. 
He is in you.

When you take the time to recognize that, it changes the work. He may not take away the backbreaking effort of the work, but joy enters in. I’ve experienced this recognition as a “budding forth” of a peaceful happy sense of purpose. The way this stanza of the Sequence describes the action of the Holy Spirit fits with experience.

“In labor, rest.” This labor is the “work” with which humanity was punished after the Fall. This is not simply work, because that is good for us and necessary, but this “labor” is hard work, toiling work. During this labor, the presence of God brings a sense of rest – centeredness – and focus, even when the labor continues. 

“In heat, temperance.” The word used for “heat” here is aestu, literally, “a raging heat of fire.” I wonder if this not only refers to actual heat like from the blazing sun, but also the raging fires of the passions in the soul. The attraction to earthly or sinful things has often been likened to fire. In either case, the Holy Spirit brings temperance – not the virtue of temperance, but a “lessening” or “tempering” of the heat. He lowers it so that we can bear it. In the case of the literal heat, he can help us bear it and offer it to God, and in the case of the heat of the passions, he can help us fight to remain virtuous and strong. 

“In tears, solace.” Again, this is the lot of fallen humanity. Because of sin, we experience grief, sadness, death, rejection, loss, and betrayal. The Holy Spirit, in his role as comforter, comes to bring us divine refreshment. This solace is as simple as His personal presence. We are not alone because he brings God to us. Where he is, the Father and Son are also. When the Holy Spirit is within, we are never alone. 

In a way, we see that the Holy Spirit is God’s answer to the fall of Adam and Eve. What they lost through the Fall, the Holy Spirit reverses. We still labor in heat and tears, but the Holy Spirit grants rest and solace in the midst of it. 

May the Holy Spirit fill us with his personal presence and bring us rest, temperance, and solace. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love! 

After spending the past several weeks considering Christian hope and the influence of modern thinkers on this important concept, we move to the next section of Spe salvi which has the section title: “The True Shape of Christian Hope.”  The Holy Father picks up on the theme of human freedom in these next few paragraphs, having begun his reflection on this important topic in the previous section.

In many ways, the timing of this topic is perfect as we come to the conclusion of the Religious Freedom Week in the Church in the United States.  This week began last Sunday, June 22 (normally the Memorial of Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More) and concludes on June 29 with the Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul.  This has replaced the Fortnight for Freedom which extended another week, ending on July 4, our nation’s Independence Day.  Though the Holy Father’s treatment of human freedom in these paragraphs of Spe salvi are not specifically about religious freedom per se, they are helpful for any discussion about the freedom that we as human beings have been gifted by God.

The pope makes the point that for man, “freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew.” (SS 24) This is not to say that we are free to choose what we want to be true, and in the name of freedom, can justify any decision that we want.  Rather, we can draw upon the “moral treasury” of humanity that has gone before us to help us in knowing what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, but each generation is called upon to use their freedom in choosing that good, not just having those decisions made for us.  To do so would not be freedom.

On this point some might object to what the Holy Father is saying, claiming that the Church, in all of her teachings and rules, has defined what is acceptable and what is not, and that we are placed in a position that we must follow those guidelines.  True, the Church gives us clear guidance on a whole host of things, but our freedom remains, and we have the ability to accept or reject those teachings.  But there are consequences when we use our freedom to reject the good, which we call sin.  The Church does not define actions as sinful in the hopes of limiting our freedom, rather, she does so as a loving Mother to protect us, so that, in freedom, we can choose what is right and good, and so experience the fullness of life that the Gospel promises, and not fall into the slavery that sin inevitably leads to.  

Pope Benedict writes about the important role that structures play in promoting true freedom, such as various government structures.  He says the following:

The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are. Such structures are not only important, but necessary; yet they cannot and must not marginalize human freedom. Even the best structures function only when the community is animated by convictions capable of motivating people to assent freely to the social order. Freedom requires conviction; conviction does not exist on its own, but must always be gained anew by the community. (ibid.)

We have seen this play out in a variety of ways throughout the history of our country, on topics such as political freedom and independence at the beginning of our country, abolition of slavery and civil rights, women’s rights, labor rights, freedom of speech, immigration and refugee rights, and religious freedom, just to name a few.  Our history as a nation demonstrates how freedom is always something that is in need of reflection and renewal.  Though the Church is not directly involved in the creation and enforcement of civil laws, she provides a needed voice in these conversations to ensure that true freedom, according to the author of all good, namely God, is never ignored or rejected.