hope, seeking the arduous good . . . 8th week tuesday 2014

Suicide has been quiet common lately.  Kadamo ang mga nabati-an naton nga nag-suicide kag kadamo man kita question on the consequences of suicide - whether they are allowed catholic burial or not, whether they are allowed to be buried in Catholic cemeteries or not.  I believe this has been answered satisfactorily several times already and I don’t think we need to discuss this further.  But there is one question we fail to ask – why is suicide becoming quiet common?  Why do we hear it and therefore why is it happening more often than in the past?

A person who commits suicide is one who has lost hope, he could no longer see any future good, he has given up on things and the possibility of goodness on circumstances, on other people and even on himself.  He feels that the good is something beyond his reach.  This is called despair and despair is the opposite of hope, the second theological virtue, a virtue that is given to us by God as a gift.
What is hope?  St. Thomas Aquinas said that hope is “a future good, difficult by possible to attain by means of divine assistance on whose help it leans.”  It is a future good, a future happiness.  It is difficult to attain, for it will involve struggles and overcoming obstacles.  But this can be attained by means of God’s help believing that with God all things are possible.  You may be in great stress today but if you have hope you believe that the best is yet to come, you believe that something good will come out of this, and in believing you persevere, you do not give up.  That is hope.  But hope can be difficult because as St. Thomas Aquinas said, it is a movement, a stretching forth of the will towards an arduous good.  Ginaagwanta, ginapangabudlayan agod malab-ot ang mabudlay nga kaayo, agod madab-ot ang mabudlay nga kalipay - the arduous good.

Many times the good that we seek, the happiness that we seek are the easy kind –material things, relationships, some even go to the cheap kind like drugs.  These are not the objects of hope.  Instead they are escapes, shortcuts and diversions from the arduous good which is the real object of hope – the happiness offered to us by God.

Our gospel today speaks of the hope offered by Jesus – in the kingdom of God those who have given up house, brothers and sisters or mother and father or lands including persecutions will have houses, brothers and sisters, children, and lands, hundreds of them plus eternal life.  This is the arduous good of Jesus.  It is difficult – imagine giving up the things the world values, for what?... because Jesus promised us a greater happiness in the end.  This is hope.  You keep on doing good, you keep on believing because Jesus has offered us a greater and real happiness.

Tomorrow we will start lent.  We will make an attempt once more to change our ways, to convert ourselves to become better.  Bwas basi masiling ka, amo man ta ni sa gihapon, bisan anano pa ni naton ka pamuling sang aton agtang – we will end up the same, wala effect ni ang lent.  That is not hope, that is not hope.

Let us continue to persevere in the good we intend to do.  Let us continue to hope.