Advent 2-Minute Drill: Strengthening our hope

Listen to this 2-Minute Drill

One of the things that our Brotherhood loves about the season of Advent is this rich theme of hope: meaning our confident expectation, our longing for the fullness of the kingdom of Christ.

Certainly, the virtue of hope is to prompt us, to motivate us to work hard to establish the reign of Christ more deeply in our own lives now on earth: in our personal lives, our families, our Brotherhood, our outreaches, our parishes, our church, the nation, the world.

But as we work hard for the kingdom now, we also (by that same virtue of hope) should long for, pine for, and cry out to God for the fullness of His reign to come one day — because we truly ache, long, and groan for that to come. In fact, it’s the deepest longing of the human heart.

And there are ample opportunities to strengthen this virtue, not only in this season, but in daily life throughout the year. All you need to do is look around us. Be it the daily news, or in our own lives, or our friendships, relationships, as we look around and see the suffering. It can be heavy as we look and see disease, terrorism, wars, or disasters, abuse, broken homes and ultimately death.

These things which, rather than grow despondent about them, can be an opportunity for us to turn our hearts to the Lord in a simple prayer aspiration and say, “O Lord, may the fullness of your kingdom come! I long for the fullness of your kingdom — when you will establish true peace, true joy, true liberation, and a resurrected body. And for that we can say, ‘Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus!'”