Yet, evidently an objection might be raised. Is not our incertitude as to whether we shall persevere and partake in the fruits of Redemption, a drop of wormwood which might poison all this joy? Had we not better bear in mind the words of St. Augustine, “He who made thee without thee will not justify thee without thee”? True enough, the hour of eternal holy joy—joy pure and untroubled, joy unceasing and indestructible—has not yet struck for us. The Lord has not yet spoken to us the words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: enter into the joy of thy Lord.” We still dwell in this life, and our situation is still fraught with the character of duality.

However, all our sufferings are transfigured by a ray of light; a light of vivifying solace is spread about everything that would, in itself, legitimately fill us with anguish and sorrow, That light is hope. It is our right, it is our duty to hope: for hope is one of the three theological virtues which are to inform a Christian’s life. Hope, illuminating everything like a shaft of light that pierces through darkness, rectifies and sweetens all sorrow in its innermost core.

So long as we are in statu viae we still live in hope. This means that the eternal morning has not yet dawned: that we have not attained the Goal but are as yet on our pilgrimage. But it means, also, that we already possess hope itself: that, in other words, joy has already virtually conquered all suffering. For we do not hope in the sense of a vague, obscure, halfhearted expectation. Ours is a radiant hope, a firm hope founded on the word of God and the fact of Redemption. And the possession of this Christian hope—a response to the goodness and the revealed truth of God—is in itself an incomparable treasure of happiness.

Therefore, although there is plenty of reason for sorrow, and although our sorrow is not only excused but exalted: “Blessed are they that mourn,” a Christian on his earthly pilgrimage must never live “as though he had no hope.” In the first place, since there is an infinitely greater reason for joy than there is for sorrow, joy must keep its primacy over sorrow. Secondly, the cross of earthly life—all pain and all sorrow, that is—should be illumined and transfigured by hope. “That you be not sorrowful even as others who have no hope,” says St. Paul (1 Thess. 4:13).

We should rejoice even about the natural gifts of God