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A Christian is a man who lives completely out of himself in Christ--he lives in the faith of his Redemption, the love of his Redeemer, loving us for whom he died. He lives, above all, in the hope of a world to come.
Hope is the secret of true asceticism. It denies our own judgements and desires and rejects the world in its present state, not because either we or the world is evil, but because we are not in the position to make the best of our own or the world’s goodness. But we rejoice in hope. We enjoy created things in hope. We enjoy them not as they are in themselves but as they are in Christ--full of promise. For that goodness of all things is a witness to the goodness of God and a guarantee of his fidelity to his promises. He has promised us a new heaven and a new Earth, a risen life in Christ. All self-denial that is not entirely suspended form his promise is something less than Christian.
My Lord, I have no hope but in your cross. You, by your humility, suffering, and death, have delivered me from vain hope. You have killed the vanity of the present life in yourself, and have given me all that is eternal in rising from the dead. What should I want to be rich, when you were poor? Why should I desire to be famous and powerful in the eyes of men, when the sons of those who exalted the false prophets and stoned the true rejected you and nailed you on the cross? Why should I cherish in my heart a hope that devours me--the hope for perfect happiness in this life--when such hope, doomed to frustration, is nothing but despair? My hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore, let me not trust in visible reward. My hope is in what the heart of man cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart. My hope is in what the hand of man has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers. Death will loosen my grasp, and my vain hope will be gone. Let me trust in your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in your love, not in health, or strength, or ability or human resources.
If I trust you, everything will become, for me, strength, health, and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust you, everything will be my destruction.
(Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude. New York: The Noonday Press, 1956, 1958, 1995)
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