The virtue of the month for Challenge and Conquest in January is hope. Hope is something hard to describe but once get it we can understand why it changes the life of a Christian. The definition of hope is described as the desire of something together with the expectation of obtaining it. So basically you can hope for something and know you will get it. For a Christian, that is heaven and being with God. Hope is the foundation for our confidence in God and in ourselves.
Number 1817 and 1818 of the Catechism says “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. The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.”
Pope Francis said last year, “Jesus is not a figure from the past: he continues now and always to light the way for us.” This is the source of our hope.