Every Advent, a beautiful poem by the French writer Charles Péguy, comes to mind as I reflect on the gift of hope. He wrote “On the Portico of the Mystery of Hope” from his own experience, and it offers some beautiful insights on the relationship between the virtues of faith, hope and love. Péguy was raised in poverty by his mother. Widowed when her husband died of wounds suffered in the Franco-Prussian War, she earned a living by repairing furniture. She saw to it that her son Charles was raised in the faith and received a good education. Yet, when he was 22, he left the practice of the faith and became an ardent socialist and atheist. In time, he became disillusioned by politics, and, after suffering a life-threatening illness, he returned to the faith at age 35. As his wife was an atheist and refused to be married in the church or to have their three children baptized, he was unable to receive Communion, a situation that brought him great suffering. Yet his faith had a singular influence on his life and writings. His works, especially his poem on hope, influenced many leaders, including Charles de Gaulle. In “On the Portico of the Mystery of Hope,” Péguy portrays God commenting on the virtues of faith, hope and love, which are presented as three sisters on a journey. Walking between two adult sisters, faith and love, hope is a little girl, who, unlike her elders, goes unnoticed. Faith and love get all the attention because they are so easily accepted and naturally understood. God observes that it is not surprising that humanity would have faith and love. After all, one only needs to look at the splendor of creation in order to believe. The teeming waters of the ocean and rivers, the glorious vistas of mountains and valleys, forest and fields and the stars in the heavens make it natural to believe. So, too, the virtue of charity does not surprise God. Love of family and friends comes naturally, and when we experience love, we find it easy to love those in need. But, when it comes to hope, God is surprised by this gift. Hope is inexplicable. How is it that a person, after seeing so much suffering and evil in the world, can end a day and retire to bed still thinking that things will improve tomorrow? I have seen this kind of hope in people. My late good friend Fritzie Fritzshall, a Holocaust survivor of the camps in Auschwitz, told me that each night her aunt would tell her, “Tomorrow will be better.” This simple expression of hope to young Fritzie kept her going. St. Paul in Romans 4:18 writes that hope against hope allowed Abraham to believe God’s promise that he would be the father of many nations. This hope against hope is so astonishing, Péguy writes, that it also astonishes God. Faith sees things as they are, just as charity loves things as they are, but hope sees and loves what will be. Even though hope is the tiny sister who skips playfully between her older siblings, she has the power to pull them into the future, for unless she does so they will go nowhere and grow old and useless. Hope opens for faith and love a new day, a new path that leads to life eternal. “A tiny hope walks between two adult sisters and no one even pays attention to her. [...] It is she, this little one, who sets everything in motion. Because faith only sees what is. And she sees what will happen. Love loves only what is. And she loves what will be. [...] And in fact, she runs them. And she pulls them. And it makes everything move.” We begin a new church year this week with the start of Advent. The virtues of faith and charity come into focus this time of year. As we recall earlier Christmases, we easily respond to the summons to believe that God comes to us in a new way with the birth of Christ. We also feel the stirrings to be charitable to those in need in this season. But for the virtues of faith and love to be sustained beyond Christmastime, we will need God’s astonishing gift of hope, particularly given the great suffering and sadness in our world, which often leads to despair. I invite you to look into the face of the child Jesus, who, like that young girl skipping between her elder sisters, draws us into the future of every tomorrow, trusting that we are moving toward the day when the sun will never set. Charles Péguy died at age 41 from a gunshot wound to the head while serving in the French military at the start of World War I. Yet, his hope against hope that his wife and children would come into the faith of his childhood was realized after his death.