Hope Stays Alive
Hope is the virtue of us wayfarers who have not yet reached the goal but who know that we will always have the means to be faithful to Our Lord and to persevere in our vocation, each of us in the fulfillment of his or her duties. For this we need to be attentive to Christ, who draws near to us in the course of our occupations, and to grasp hold of the strong hand which God never ceases to reach out to us, to keep us from losing our supernatural point of view. Let us persevere even when our passions rear up and attack us, attempting to imprison us within the narrow confines of our selfishness; or when puerile vanity makes us think we are the centre of the universe. I am convinced that unless I look upward, unless I have Jesus, I will never accomplish anything. And I know that the strength to conquer myself and to win comes from repeating that cry, "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13), words which reflect God's firm promise not to abandon his children if they do not abandon him.
from In Conversation with God by Francis Fernandez p. 313