Catholic Hermit: Hope in God

Am dealing with severe pain, suffering.  Finally got up this morning, painfully, took bath, dressed.  Back down.  Angel (woman from parish with that name!) brought Communion Host.  Going to see if can cope with the pain enough to get to dermatologist as think skin cancer grown back.

Amidst all this pain siege (of hundreds or even into thousands I've had over the last 3 1/2 decades), I've had thoughts on "hope in God."  Someone who had been reading St. John of the Cross (Third Book, Part 15) wondered about what he meant, what is meant, with his mention of "hope in God."  Got me to thinking about what it is, really, truly; and that evolved over a day or two, with what it seems the Holy Spirit helps me understand, progressing from temporal hope or wishing, to the spiritual hope, the theological hope, in God.

I'm just going to cut and paste the bits from emails, as well as then some emails to another privately professed, consecrated Catholic hermit.  I know my thoughts will be repetitive and go on, as in a guitar riff that might seem inartistically lengthy.  I'm too tired to put it all in any polished order, so here it is from beginning of the spiritual friend's first emailing, asking, what is Hope in God, interspersed with my email thoughts shared with the other hermit.  [Note:  This blog post is lengthy! Lots of thoughts on Hope in God in 7 emails!]

1.  "...I'm having a rough time with pain these days. I hoped it was just a pain siege, but I think it might be a bit complicated more than just a pain siege.  The leg pain not good.  Oh well.

"So I HOPE IN GOD.  When we are desperate, we count on God.  We HOPE IN GOD.  All we yearn for, all we want and need, all our help is in hoping in God.  Do you see that?  It is God as all we have left to hope in.  It gets down to that.  Nothing else, no one else can we turn to really for help, only HOPE IN GOD ALONE.

"That's what it sure seems to me, especially since I'm in this position right now with the pain to only have God to really hope in, for anything--for getting through suffering, for coming to get me, to help keep me enduring.  Only God can we really have that kind of HOPE in.

"We can love others.  We can appreciate.  We can help by praying or in little human ways.  But we cannot really HOPE in anyone, not even ourselves, for we are fallible human beings  But we can HOPE IN GOD.

"He is who we COUNT ON.

"My head feels pressure when the pain gets so sickening and higher.  Blood pressure rises.  Typical of what pain does, though when high.  I guess it could get worse, be worse.  No one to call, nothing to be done about this. JUST HOPE IN GOD.

"Glad you wrote and mentioned that.  Puts into words what I've been feeling in desperation, for God.  HOPE IN GOD."

2.  "'For hope that is seen is not hope at all.'  That Scripture comes to mind.

"Hope for deliverance from suffering, hope for deliverance from sin, hope for deliverance from our imprisonment in the temporal.  All this hope--the deliverance--it can only come from God.

Thus, hope in God.  Is that making any sense?

"I have no idea if right or not. But it makes sense to me--that HOPE in God is really all we have. Ultimately."

3.  "I was in the fits of suffering, abandoned by surgeons--realizing I don't even have a surgeon of record that I can call to inquire about med combinations to try to cope, as the pain doctor has no means to reach him after 4:15 phones stop answering.  Not that I call much, anyway, but this pain just seems as if it is going to be most difficult to manage at this level and degree and type.

"So it seemed that I could tell [the spiritual friend who asked about Hope in God], that Hope in God is FULLY COUNTING ON GOD in all things.  To Whom shall we go?  Desperation--hope in God!  There is not a person, not a thing, not a thought, nothing at all that can help us but God alone--even as He is the one Who can arrange for some type of temporal help.  So that is the fullness of hope in God, for there is really nothing other in which or whom to place our hope.  And that verse continues to come to mind, 'For hope that is seen is no hope at all.'  God is not seen; so HOPE IN GOD. There is no other hope, in heaven or on earth, worth holding or having.  Just HOPE in GOD.

"HOPEFULLY in God, tomorrow I will be able to get through this suffering better.  Through hope in God, He will either relieve it some, or have me adapt, or come and get me, or bring some kind of surgeon breakthrough."  

4.  Dear A., Please tell me the section, book, part, whatever, that you are reading re. John of Cross on Hope. Thanks! [Ended up being Third Book, Section/Part 15, dealing on detachment; Hope in God involved.  I also shared more details of suffering situation, as it was, painfully, guiding me into more assurance and understanding of Hope in God.]

"Seems I'm having to live it out here with the nerve pain so bad.  Took extra pain med, early, and was more groggy and dozed, but it did help--other than the nerve pain could still come through--but not as intensely, and the other pain was masked some, at least.  Now am icing the lumbar.  I called pain doctor's office.  Really, there is  NOTHING they can do for me [other than will try a spinal steroid injection in a week as have to be off all anti-inflammatory meds, supplements, and nsaids/aspirin for a week prior to procedure.]

"I also called the second surgeon's nurse and left my number and message.  Asked if he had made any headway with Dr. L. to consider surgery on me, but I said I guess I know the answer since I've not heard from Dr. L.'s staff; and then asked if there is a possibility of having nerves CUT.  I also left a thanks to him for taking time with me and being helpful.  Honestly, while I insulted or grated on Dr. L's staff, obviously, and they did not like it that I did not want do deal with C., the incompetent osteo PA, at all, I'd think out of compassion, Dr. L. would overlook whatever it was so horrible that his nurse said about me, and be willing to operate.  Surely they realize people in severe pain unfortunately aren't all saints--can be caustic when in too much pain?

"Yet if God does not want the surgeon who does this type of surgery to operate, then He will make it even more clear and probably is, with no headway made with L. by the other surgeon, his partner. [Second surgeon's nurse with whom message was left, has not responded.]

"However, I've thought through the situation  and phone calls, and there is nothing more I can talk over with the pain doctor.  There is nothing they can do but what they are doing:  pain meds, and a week from tomorrow the spinal injection of steroids.  He is not now taking steps to line up a third opinion surgeon....

"So here I am--really, only HOPE IN GOD remains."

5.  Thanks for the place in J of C.  I got my book off the shelf and here on floor.

"[Wrote more of temporal pain situation, possible temporal decisions to be made if decline continues]  ...I have to figure it out.  The reason these doctors do not see me when I am in bad shape is that when I'm in bad shape I cannot get in to see them.  They can't be blamed for what they don't see.  However, the first surgeons did see my MRI and CT scans.  The first did say I needed surgery right away.  The second surgeon factored in that I seemed all right when talking with him.  More subjective.  The pain doctor all along has said is severe situation; first surgeon's first PA said severe, needs surgery.

...[Spiritual friend had sent article by a pastor on hope.]  "The thing about the Baptist minister's take on hope is that he implies or even states that hope is something we have to "work" for, to build up ourselves like a reservoir.  That is so strange, for Protestants are adamant on once saved, always saved, and it is faith, not works, by which we are saved.  But yet they seem hard at work trying to, for example as this pastor advises, to build up hope, for themselves.

"Faith, Hope and Charity are three theological virtues.  I guess we do work with virtues, but I think hope is more mystical and spiritual, and something like love, that the Holy Spirit can gift us and build in us, when we are in Christ.  When in Christ, when we have His Real Presence (Trinity indwelling) we have hope for God in Him--as that, is that--just as He is love.  So I think hope is a response of sorts or a choice, but more so is something we are given, that we then give back, such as HOPE IN GOD.  God gives us reason for hope and reason to hope; and we offer all our hope with Him, to Him, in Him.  The Holy Spirit stirs hope into flames in us.

"Hope is within us because we are within His Real Presence.  Holy Spirit is love; brings love of Father and Son to us, and then it is given back by us to others and to His Real Presence.  It is like an exchange of love, swirling around and within us and all with whom we share it, and then back to God; but it always initiates from His Real Presence, between Father and Son, and Holy Spirit is the bringer of love and instiller of love in us.  And the power of the Holy Spirit stirs that love and inflames us to have this love of God flow out from us and ultimately returns to God.  It is like a big circuit of love flowing, but comes from His Real Presence.  Faith, also.  They are all connected--Faith, Hope, Love; and yet love is said to be the greatest, of course.  God is Love.  The Holy Spirit is the purveyor of God's Love.

"Hope is in us because we are in Him.  So our effort, if we call it that, is to utilize what is already in us by virtue of us being in God, His abiding in us.  So we utilize that hope, we call upon it, we recognize it and realize we have it and can use it!  We can call upon the theological virtue of hope and put it to use in our yearning and trust in God.  Hope in God!  Count on God, trust in God, Hope in God.  Kind of that all-ness of to Whom we go, of Whom we can count on to always help us--HOW HIS REAL PRESENCE WILLS AND SEES BEST.

"Catholics do tend to grasp more of the spiritual and mystical aspects, and Protestants tend to think more in terms of temporal facts, such as the minister gave examples more temporal, of our having to build up a reservoir of hope.  Catholics' view would be that we have that reservoir for the taking and using IF we'd only realize it and take from it all the hope that is always there, always being filled and refilled by the Holy Spirit, and from God and Jesus Christ.  With them, it all flows.  

"And hope, faith, love are given to us for the taking if we only realize they are already there for us, always.  Just dip into hope, for example, and then we use it in our relationship and love of God, our need of God; our faith and hope is then in God.  What is God belongs to God. Faith, hope, and love are His, and He gives to us for free use and endless amounts.  So we use, and how we use is then in relationship to God because faith, hope and love are God's and are of and in God, and as Love, IS GOD.  I don't think Hope can be separated out from God, nor can faith, nor can love.

"Just my thoughts."

6. "God is reaching in here....  I know the Lord is asking a transition, a shift from me, particularly if the nerve pain is what I must live with.  My back is as it is, and it will be.  And I was told years ago it would get worse as I aged.  I just did not think the surgeon would not operate on me, although I was starting to feel as if I'd not be surprised with things being as goofy as they were.  Not of God, for sure, all that!

"Anyway, I read that section in St. J of C.  I had read it before--forgot!  See?  I should be reading and re-reading stuff.  Yes, he has that aspect of hope being in us, Trinity is powerful, and Holy Spirit gives us all we need to progress in love and union.  We just have to know all is available to us spiritually for the taking.  J of C's point re. the memory--is that thoughts of the memory are all right, such as you remember the rules of your work, the cash register, how to do this and that with cooking and gardening, but we don't need to dwell on that part of memory, and also to not dwell on memory such as events and situations of the past--really, good or bad.  We remember, but not linger on the memories!  

"It maybe is like how women suffer when delivering babies but do not dwell on memories of the actual suffering.  Or they'd never have another!  But we can remember that child birth hurts, yet we don't dwell on it.  We are not to be attached to memories whether they be good or bad.  Just accept the memory as a benefit the Lord gives us in our selves, our minds, our souls.  Without memory we'd not be able to drive--would not remember rules of the road, etc.  We'd not remember birthdays, or prayers that we memorized.  So memory is a gift, a quite useful, beneficial gift.  But we are not attached to gifts such as our memories, or should not be. Just utilize the benefit--such as praying the Our Father.  Just do it without attaching ourselves to whatever process by which we "remember it" from our "memory."  

"As for attachment to negative memories--awful!  That is a big no-no that  St. J of C is emphasizing in a way.  Bad memories are good only in that we learn what we ought not to repeat.  Attachment to positive memories can get us stuck in pride or wishing what is no longer.  Having a good memory can, though, be a reminder to bolster us that good things are also part of life; they can engender gratitude and praise of God. But stay, and train ourselves, as best we can to remain in Order of the Present Moment.  J of C's take away is to accept memory, as it is necessary and wonderful, but not be attached, not dwell on memory.  Utilize it for the good of our souls and to glorify God.  

"St. John of the Cross is a great saint and teacher--a master--of learning detachment.  Yet he emphasizes not to get frustrated or force ourselves from attachment, just gently turn from memory as a thing in itself, or turn gently from the details of memories.  Keep turning to hope in God.  Hope is really in us, a gift, as  I mentioned or proposed in earlier email.  It is a pool of water, a well filled--is hope, faith, and love.  Holy Spirit keeps the well filled of all that we need for perfection and union with His Real Presence.  We just have to be aware of THOSE aspects, those gifts, and utilize THEM.  They really, if anything, are our ATTACHMENTS.  Attach to hope, faith, and love as these will take us to union with God.

"But I am reminded in reading this--the emphasis of gentleness--not anything forced.  God is not one who forces, nor should we.  Forcing ourselves or being frustrated means we think we should be further along and better, faster.  Union is not a race with ourselves (or with others) to God.  It is a long and gentle floating with His Real Presence.  It is not to be like a rape in sex.  It is to be a long period of intimacy, of us human beloved of Jesus in getting to know the Lover and each to know and love one another.  It is for the beloved of God to have hope and faith in the Lord as in a beloved Lover, to absorb from the infinite hope, faith, and love forever available in our beloved, perfect Lover.  We then learn and desire lovingly to offer these back to Him, and to take time gently with the intimacy of the spiritual betrothal, marriage, and ultimately the consummation!  That is so much better than a rape--of a forced everything or anything.

"I tend to be impatient.  So this is all very good for me to consider.  And also, I had not thought until this evening about so much about hope and faith and love....  I knew the Holy Spirit brings the love to us from between the Father and the Son, to be utilized and given to others and back to the Trinity like a circular sharing, and that love is always created and emanating first from the Father and Son.  So I realize now that hope and faith, also, are from God.  We humans certainly cannot create hope or faith!  He is the Creator. 

"And that is why the minister's thoughts did not ring quite right for me.  Good points, but they were of the temporal view of hope, of wishing something, desiring something, how something happens that we wish for.  That hope is from a temporal view, not the spiritual view of the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son.  It is a type of hope that I have stated inadvertently, without thinking, far too often.  But we are called to see the spiritual view, the view of His Real Presence.  That is the whole point of deeper conversions and union with Him. We learn to see as our Lover sees.  We understand as He understands.  

"Hope is a theological virtue--very spiritual.  It is of God.  Hoping in God is a spiritual action that all we do is cooperate, and the more we cooperate and accept God's hope for us, we are able to all the more hope in God.  The more he places His hope in us, the more we place our hope in Him.  Very natural and beautiful, like love, like faith.  Theological virtue--theology--study of God.  Theological virtue is a virtue, then, OF GOD.  All the other virtues require our effort, understanding, knowledge, and effort.  Self-control, fortitude, etc.  I have to think of these other virtues, but they are not the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, thus have different format, application, and response from us.

"...hope in God is gentle and easy, like His yoke is easy, his burden light.  Hope is already available to us; we just have to be aware and drink of the well of hope, the well of faith, the well of love.  Fill ourselves with what God gives us in faith, hope, and love--and then let it permeate us and extend to whomever, and flow back to His Real Presence.  Hope in God.  Faith in God.  Love in God.  St. Bernard writes that the greatest and highest level of love is to love God in Himself.  It all fits!"

7.  [to other hermit]  "Been considering "hope" since the one person emailed me about it, wondering about something St. J of C wrote of hope.  Hope in God--only worthwhile hope to really know--will always be true and real.  Hope in things as in to desire this or that--well, not sure to be "seen" coming true.  Hope is really only real and true always when it is the spiritual hope, the theological virtue of hope.  All else are temporal wishes and desires.  

"Fine to go that route, and I tend to always say hope this and hope that, but I knew in reality it is a temporal hope and not necessarily at all what will be the outcome, for hope in God is always going to have an outcome according to God's view and will and providence, and God's view is always for the soul, what is best for the soul, which often runs contrary to physical outcomes we might "wish" or "hope" for or think with our human minds as being best.  

"So J of C's point is to detach; be fine with whatever.  Hope in God, as that, is the theological of God "hope."  Always then will that be a true hope, an "answered" hope, I guess we could say.  Kind of like deeper conversion will always be answered by His Real Presece, when we ask that for ourselves, and hope in God will always be answered, in a sense, made real--as opposed to when we are hoping it won't rain if too dry or hoping it will rain if too dry, or hoping for pain to go away, etc.  Those are perhaps "wan hopes".  Very temporal--hopes that we can think of, can "see" in our minds and imaginations.  

"Consider if the hope that a husband or wife would have wanted to stay married, had loved the spouse as St. Paul says people are to love, as Christ loves the Church?  What then?  Those hopes don't necessarily come to reality.  Often, those hopes can keep us from understanding and accepting God's purpose and will for us.  We'd not be as God wanted for us, to be HIS alone, to take us on this mystical journey, to have our souls learn, to have snippets of union while on earth?  Our hopes can cause us to not provide Him with what it is He wishes of us, of our souls--even if our hopes to us seem best and right.  God sees perfectly; we see as through a mist (or eye cataracts!), imperfectly.

"Think about if people's hopes to be healed or cancer to go away were always the same as God's hopes and in a sense we got our hopes fulfilled.  What if my mom's hope that my already up-in-years dad would get better was fulfilled?  I had to remind her he would still die, and did she want him to go through such suffering all over again or in some other way, then again or again and again?  We are all going to die.  If people's hopes for themselves and others to live or not have suffering, what then?  We'd not necessarily learn what is best for our SOULS.  We'd always be stuck with these bodies, never have mystical union, never be with Christ in far more vibrant ways than ever we can in the temporal, on earth.  Stuck here for eternity?  I HOPE IN GOD NOT.

"So if the woman from parish can take me to appt. fine.  If somehow the pain lifts enough by later afternoon, and I can drive, fine.  If I'd not read the one little portion that St. J of C wrote, of which the person wrote and asked me about, I'd not have remembered the good of spiritual detachment, of holy indifference.  If this or that happens, fine, if not, fine.  It will all work out if not today, another, or if not another, then it has worked out.  It works out as God's HOPE, as Hope in God, has occurred, in some other aspect, the theological virtue aspect, the mystical view aspect of HOPE.

"Hope in God, not in this or that. Hope that is 'seen' is no hope at all, as Scripture says.  Kind of like the prayer for deeper conversions.  Stack my  bets on what will actually be answered, actually be worth it, actually is truth.  Hope in God is truth, not hope in this or that, much as I say that all the time as an automatic kind of response or comment.  Hope for this or that for someone, hope I can drive myself later, hope this skin cancer does not have to be cut out again.  Well, that is a silly hope!  Could as well hope it does have to be cut out, for would I want it to spread into eye socket bone?  Well, even that--if it does, it does.  If it is some fluke bump, it is that.  

"If I can or cannot drive myself today, then another day, or whatever.  All my wishes and desires in that kind of hope are kind of pointless in a way.  Hope in God is real, and worthwhile.  In that, God's will is done, and it is spiritual hope, not anything seen or thought of in a sense of seeing some outcome of rain or no rain, etc.  I wonder just how many times a day I think or say: Hope this or that for someone.  It is a kindly thing to say, but in actuality, hoping in a certain outcome is not necessarily the best hope at all for any of us.  Just chattering what I want, basically, what I wish for.  Not getting it runs risk of people becoming bitter, or losing faith, or resenting or being disappointed, or having anger.  Hope for a certain job.  Well, it will or will not be.  

"I do know that it is good to be hopeful--positive attitude--for temporal things, of course; but I now realize best to Hope in God, for in God His will is done, and His will is for our very souls.  His will is perfect--always best for us!  Perhaps he is using, for example, a job search as means of some type of spiritual lesson, for spiritual growth?  That is what He always does with aspects in our lives, and He takes things away, also, for always perfect and beautiful reasons.  We just don't see it as He sees, His way, for the most part.  

"Well, whatever--you know all this.  I'm just thinking of it now, in a different light, with seeing how much stuff I say 'hope this' or 'hope for that.'  Maybe need to start saying 'Hope in God.' Hope is of and from God, the real hope, the hope that is not seen but is true and actual, spiritual, eternal hope:  God's hope for us and our hope for God.

"Also, going to let go of a lot of temporal "hopes" that I say or think; I see my hoping for this or that temporal "wish" or "desire"l as a lot of clutter, now.  Funny, odd, or both--how all of  a sudden I can learn how much clutter is something that sounds good and positive...but is extraneous, in a way, to the purest, such as purest hope, true hope.  Really, then, God should be my one and only hope.  In God's hope, all "hopes" occur including temporal and spiritual.  That can be God's hope for us, to learn to hope in Him.  Hoping in God is always for our soul's good and best.  

"I should consider such as those who think God definitely wants me to have less pain.  That thought or "hope" is definitely one that we humans attribute to God, that we in our minds think God wants for us.  God may not at all want me to have less pain.  It is unlikely His point at all!  He wants my soul to stop struggling, which is no doubt painful for God to watch me and to know, and struggling surely adds to or causes me confusion and a type of 'pain.'   Pain is as it is; we do have temporal bodies, after all.  Stop hoping for such as a surgeon to operate, hoping that somehow the pain would be less, when that is not necessarily even possible or can occur in the temporal.  

"While on earth we will know earthly pain.  Yet I tend (habitually) to hope for myself and others to have less.  That is fine to keep hoping like that for outcomes and situations that I "see" of sorts in a human way, but it is not necessarily a hope in God--His hope of which I'm to hope in--at all!  God's hope for myself or others is the spiritual hope.  Hope in God might be a lessening of pain, for example, or such as with me years ago, to be sent back to live awhile longer, rear my children and fulfill my mission; but it could also have been to take me on with Him, for my body to remain dead in that recovery room.  

God's hope--and our hope in God--is that hope which is not seen by us, and which is for the best of our souls which often requires a contradiction in outcome or process compared to that which we "hope" for temporally--our temporal "wishes" and "desires" which is not the same type of hoping as when we hope in God." 

[Thus concludes my thoughts on Hope in God, as expressed in various email correspondence over the  past couple of days.  I consider these as gifts from the Holy Spirit to help me understand what it is to hope in God--and to make my hoping to be hope in God exclusively, henceforth.  This will be of great help in managing the higher levels of physical pain, as well as in the type of hoping that is of highest effect and benefit for others, too:  Hope in God!  I have all the hope I could possibly ever need to draw upon from the wellspring of faith, hope, and love that is kept brimming full and ready for the taking and using--provided eternally by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  God bless His Real Presence in us!]