Today’s Gospel Lesson is about a person whose way of life has entrapped him in a hopeless situation: a man without hope! In First Corinthians, St. Paul identifies “hope” as one of the three abiding gifts of Grace: “Faith, hope and love abide,” he says.
Omar Khayyam (the poet who wrote the famous line, “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou”), also wrote about hope:
The worldly hope that men set their hearts upon
turns to ashes or it prospers and, anon,
like snow upon the desert’s dusty face
lighting a little hour or two, is gone.
That is a striking image, especially for those who know the desert and have seen the beauty of a snow blanket on its dusty face which, “in hour or two” will be gone. Omar Khayyam is saying that our hope is often like that. Many of us have experienced it in just that way. Something dreadful happens to us…
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