The How-To Book of Catholic Devotions, Second Edition. Mike Aquilina

help my unbelief!”

       Lord, I Believe in You

      “But you, beloved, who possess this faith, or who have begun now newly to have it, let it be nourished and increase in you. For as things temporal have come, so long before foretold, so will things eternal also come, which are promised.”

      — St. Augustine

      “Having faith in the Lord is not something that solely involves our intelligence, the area of intellectual knowledge; rather, it is a change that involves our life, our whole self…. With faith everything truly changes, in us and for us, and our future destiny is clearly revealed … the meaning of life, the pleasure of being pilgrims bound for the heavenly Homeland.”

      — Pope Benedict XVI

      “If we Christians really lived in accordance with our faith, the greatest revolution of all times would take place. The effectiveness of our co-redemption depends on each one of us. You should meditate on this.”

      — St. Josemaría Escrivá

6. How to Make an Act of Hope

      “I sure hope I win the lottery!” Well, hitting the jackpot may or may not be a good thing. And that statement is at best wishful thinking. It certainly has nothing to do with the theological virtue of hope.

      The virtue of hope is given to us at Baptism. Unlike the lottery, it is a sure bet. Hope is based on certainty because it is founded on Christ and on His promises. Do you want eternal life? No problem; Christ has overcome sin and death and provides a channel for relationship with the Father. Do you want truth? Christ has revealed the mind and heart of God. He has given the Holy Spirit to guide you in the ways of truth. Maybe you’d like to hit the jackpot and find both meaning and love. Well, as a baptized Christian, you hold the winning ticket. Christ has loved you first and granted you His sanctifying grace. You are on a path that leads to the ultimate prize: life eternal in Christ.

      To make an act of hope, then, is to set your sight firmly on the goal, knowing in your heart that God will take you there, and asking Him to speed you along the way. Praying these prayers can help you to gain endurance, realistic optimism, and strength to go on. The traditional Act of Hope prayer is:

       O my God, relying on your almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon for my sins, the help of your grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.

      You may want to say at this point: “If God freely gives me everything, what is hope about?” The lottery comparison can still help. You might have the winning ticket, but even that is useless if you neglect to cash it in. And if you lose that ticket — through your own carelessness — you forfeit the prize.

      Our hope is sure because Jesus is fully trustworthy. Still, you and I are the other side of the hope equation. Through carelessness or bad will, we can fail to respond to God. We can reject the mercy of God and live only for ourselves. We can even be tempted to the sin of despair, totally rejecting hope in God’s love and power to save us. Then we’ve lost our ticket.

      The virtue of hope is given freely to us at Baptism. But we cannot let it lie dormant. We must consciously live this virtue by actively placing our trust in God. Continual acts of trust strengthen our inner conviction that God loves us and provides for us. This conviction then leads us to rely more on God’s promise. Thus, hope is a virtue that can continue to put down deeper roots and bloom more beautiful flowers in our lives. To use another analogy: a muscle never used is still a muscle, but a muscle that is exercised has real power to work. Hope grows and becomes a greater influence in our lives as we exercise our trust in God — as we make acts of hope a vital part of our prayer.

      Christian hope is the basis of joy and realistic optimism. Even when we are in difficult situations, hope assures us that we rest in God’s hands. We find solace knowing that He loves us and allows even suffering for our good. Christian hope gives us a perspective that goes beyond our immediate circumstances and allows us to see the horizon.

       “My whole hope is nowhere but in Your exceeding great mercy.”

      — St. Augustine

       Building upon Hope

      Through [Jesus Christ] we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:2-5)

      Here St. Paul shows us how hope develops in our lives. We start from a basis of hope founded in grace, and we anticipate “sharing the glory of God.” When suffering comes into our lives, Paul tells us to “rejoice” in the suffering. It’s not that suffering is pleasant, but that suffering accepted with hope and trust can lead us somewhere — to a share in the glory of God. Suffering can also foster our strength and endurance. Endurance, in turn, allows us to better handle other difficulties that come our way. Over time, that virtue becomes so rooted in our lives that it becomes a character trait that allows us to see life from the perspective of eternity. That’s hope.

      If we struggle with a negative attitude and are prone to lack trust, there are many helps available to us. For example, we can read the lives of the saints. Many of them went through trials, but through all, they hoped and trusted in God. Their example can motivate us to greater trust. Whenever we find ourselves slipping into negativity, we can also consciously make an act of hope, in our own words or in the words of the traditional prayer. When we actively speak words of trust and hope, our feelings are more likely to catch up.

       Our Hope is Sure

      “[Christ] has now reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel which you heard.”

      — Colossians 1:22-23

      “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.”

      — Titus 3:4-7

      “Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God — God who has loved us and who continues to love us ‘to the end,’ until all ‘is accomplished’ (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30).”

      — Pope Benedict XVI, Saved in Hope (Spe Salvi), n. 27

7. How to Make an Act of Charity (Love)

      Charity, or love, is the most important gift God gives us at Baptism. Without divine love, which is His very life, we could never love as God requires us to love. For we must love perfectly, as He does.

      Still, we have the responsibility to exercise the gift of divine love, through our life and our works, but also through prayers that explicitly express our love. Tradition calls these prayers Acts of Charity or Acts of Love. Here is the most popular form of this prayer:

       O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all good and worthy of all love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. I forgive all who have injured me and ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

      The first object of our love must be God himself. We are called to love God above everything else — with our whole heart, mind, and soul. Love of God is called the queen of all virtues. All other virtues lead us toward God; only love unites us to God. And from divine love spring all other virtues.

      How do we love God? First, by avoiding