Sharon at Clarity's place is just brilliant!

Absolutely brilliant!

She expresses beautifully how hope is intimately tied to our desire for Christ. Humanity is created to love, and we want to love absolutely. Because of original sin, however, we know longer naturally how to love as we ought. We see God's presence in this fallen world only with great difficulty. Thus, we often find that our desire for him remains frustrated. If we're truly lost, we turn to the transient in the hopes that somehow this may fill the void within us. Whatever we happen to find may appear to satisfy us for a short while. Inevitably, however, it will fail to keep us fulfilled. The void returns. Our desire for the infinite remains frustrated. How, then, can we hope? Well, our faith, lived in shared in community, provides the key:

It is the Church who shows us the One we truly desire and can bring us to Him. Who will save us from ourselves? Hope is difficult, because while we know what we desire, the circumstances of life often seem to thwart us. Sometimes we meet Christ in a beautiful moment, in this world, among certain people or by a particular grace. And then the beauty is next hidden. This happened to the apostles during the Passion, when they could no longer see the face of Christ because he was bloodied, beaten. Hope is the grace that brings us through to cling to His Person through the apparent contradiction, through the sensation of being abandoned. As it was for St. Therese in the dark night of her soul, when she clung to Christ without the help of her natural feelings.

Only in Christ can we have union with the blessed Trinity. Only through the fullness of faith lived among the people of God that is the Church will we live in fullness with Christ. Thus, Peter truly possess the keys to the kingdom. Thanks be to God that the gate has been opened and awaits us. Let us in joy and gratitude pass through. Then, we will receive him that we infinitely desire. Then, we will finally know the fulfillment of our hope.