The Promise of Things

Last time, we explored how faith is trust rooted in the past—a confidence built upon testimony, memory, and the proven faithfulness of God. Faith looks back and says, He has acted.

Today, we turn our gaze forward to hope, the theological virtue that leans into what is yet to come. If faith is trust in a testimony already given, then hope is surely the held breath of expectation—the quiet, steady anticipation of promises not yet fulfilled but already assured.

Faith remembers.
Hope waits.

And unlike optimism, which depends on circumstances, Christian hope is anchored in certainty: not in what the future might bring, but in what God has already promised to bring about.

But Christian hope must be carefully distinguished from something far more fragile: wishful thinking.

The Catechism is precise here:

“Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
—CCC 1817

Hope does not wish; it expects.
Hope does not guess; it awaits.

Wishing is rooted in uncertainty. It says, “Perhaps this will happen.”
Hope is rooted in promise. It says, “This will come to pass.”

Chief among these promises is one made by the Master Himself:
“I will return.”

Consider the image of a master leaving his home for a time, his faithful companion remaining behind. The companion does not know the hour of the return. He does not understand the reason for the absence. But he knows the one who left—and because he knows him, he waits.

Not anxiously.
Not resentfully.
But expectantly.

He waits by the door, not because he has calculated the odds of return, but because return is part of the relationship. The waiting itself is an expression of trust.

This is the posture of Christian hope.

We do not know the day or the hour.
We do not know how long the waiting will last.
But we know the One who promised.

And so the Church waits—not in fear of abandonment, but in confidence of return.

Watchfulness: How Christ Taught Hope

Christ knew that His absence would be misunderstood. He knew His disciples would be tempted either toward anxiety or toward forgetfulness. And so, again and again, He taught hope through parables of waiting.

“The master of the house is away.”
“The bridegroom is delayed.”
“The lord goes on a journey.”

These are not stories about abandonment. They are stories about trust under delay.

In the parable of the faithful servant, the servant does not know when the master will return—but he continues to act as though the return is certain. His faith in the master’s character governs his behavior in the master’s absence.

Likewise, the wise virgins keep their lamps lit not because they know the hour, but because they know the promise. Their waiting is active, disciplined, and sober.

Christ never told His disciples to speculate about the future.
He told them to stay awake.

Watchfulness, then, is hope put into practice. It is faith stretched forward into time. It is trust refusing to decay into forgetfulness.

The danger Christ warns against is not being wrong about the timing—it is living as though the return will never happen at all.

The Second Coming: The Fulfillment of Hope

All Christian hope ultimately points to one future moment: the return of Christ.

This is not metaphor.
This is not myth.
This is promise.

The same Jesus who came in humility will come again in glory. The same Lord who once knocked at the doors of history will knock again at the doors of creation itself.

Hope does not ask if He will return.
Hope waits for when.

This is why the Creed does not say, “We hope He might come again.”
It says, “He will come again in glory.”

Christian hope lives between the Ascension and that return. It is the posture of the Church standing at the door of history, lamps lit, eyes forward, heart steady.

We wait—not as orphans, but as those who know the Master’s voice.
We wait—not in fear, but in fidelity.
We wait—not because we doubt, but because we trust.

Faith taught us who God is by remembering what He has done.
Hope teaches us how to live while we await what He has promised.

And so the Church waits—not idly, not anxiously, not wishfully—but faithfully.

Hope Faces Forward

Faith looks back and remembers what God has done.
Hope looks forward and lives according to what God has promised.

This is why hope is inseparable from the future. Remove the future, and hope collapses into nostalgia or wishing. But when the future is secured by promise, hope becomes strength.

Christian hope does not peer anxiously into the unknown. It stands firmly on the certainty of what is coming: Christ will return, justice will be restored, death will be defeated, and every tear will be wiped away. These are not aspirations. They are declarations.

Hope teaches us how to live in the in-between time — between promise and fulfillment, between Ascension and return. It keeps us watchful without panic, patient without passivity, faithful without fear.

We wait because we trust.
We endure because we expect.
We remain faithful because the future belongs to God.

The world often treats the future as a threat or an illusion. Christian hope insists it is a meeting.

And so the Church waits — not because she is uncertain, but because she is sure. Sure that the One who came once will come again. Sure that history is moving somewhere. Sure that the door we wait beside will open.

Faith taught us who God is.
Hope teaches us where we are going.

And because of that, the future is not something to fear — it is something to prepare for.