The Diminution of Hope, by Father Richard Frederick Clarke, SJ

How is it that we find many who, in their younger days are full of hope and courage, fall away gradually as life goes on from their early promise? Is it that advancing years tend of them selves to make us less hopeful? Or is it the necessary result of painful experience? No, it is not the one or the other; it is in great measure our own fault. It is because we have not advanced in virtue with our advancing years; it is because we have not been faithful to grace; it is because we have been selfish and indolent, and have followed our own inclinations instead of the Divine leading. All this has made the distant light that shone upon our path grow dim and faint.

Especially our hope has been dulled by our habit of doing our actions from natural motives instead of from the love of God. Natural impulse has been for the most part the moving power in our life, natural benevolence, activity, zeal, likes and dislikes. Our conversation has not been in heaven but on earth. Our affections have been set rather on things of earth than on heavenly things. This is why we have been disappointed and felt our disappointment keenly, and have been discouraged and lost hope. If we had been working for God alone we should have hoped on in spite of apparent failures.

We have also dimmed our hope by a habit of finding fault and grumbling. There is nothing like this for making us discontented. We create miseries for ourselves and make all things look black by our gloomy way of looking at them. He who looks at the right side will find that all becomes brighter and brighter to the perfect day.

- text from Beautiful Pearls of Catholic Truth; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Diocese of New York, 6 October 1897