SPX PARISH: YEAR OF RENEWAL - Hope in December

Hope

Our focus for the month of December (and the season of Advent) in Year of Renewal is pretty simple: “Hope.”

In our video introduction this month, Robby Kiley explores the theme of hope, helping us understand the difference between secular hope (or “wishing”) and Christian hope. After the video, stick around below and delve deeper into Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi or “Saved in Hope.”

Advent is a time we can renew our vision of hope. We encourage you and your family to read the excerpts below and consider how you can grow in your practice of hope:

“The present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey” (Spe Salvi no. 1). What goal do we have that gives us hope? How do we show our confidence in this goal?
“I am definitely loved and whatever happens to me - I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good” (Spe Salvi no. 3). This quote comes from St. Josephine Bakhita. Do we believe her statement? Do we trust that our life “is good” no matter the circumstance? How do we cultivate this attitude as a family?
“God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter… his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us.” (Spe Salvi no. 31). How can we help God’s love reach us? How do we help bring that hope to others, as people with “hope to bring?”