Theme
Christ Our Hope
“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtains, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…”
Hebrews 6:19-20
“The present day crisis of faith is essentially a crisis of Christian hope.”
Those are the words of Pope Benedict XVI, words given to the Church in his second encyclical, Spe Salvi. In the encyclical, the pope reminded the world that hope, true hope, begins, ends, and abides in a relationship Jesus Christ. He also reminded us that to hope means to know Christ. It means to know that “I am definitively loved, and whatever happens to me, I am awaited by this love. And so my life is good.”
Because of that love, because of the “God with a human face,” we have a new and sure foundation. We can root our lives, not in material prosperity, but in the knowledge of God’s love and his promise of redemption.
That promise, Benedict stressed, is not just a promise for tomorrow. The Christian faith is not simply about what will be, but about what is. “It gives us,” he wrote, “something even now of the reality we are waiting for…The fact that this future exists changes the present.”
Or, at least, it should change the present. The question for Christians now, is, “Is the Christian faith for us today a life-changing and life-sustaining hope?”
During the summer of 2009, Franciscan University had a season full of Hope. From the Defending the Faith Conference, we explored the “Reasons for Hope” to the Catholic Charismatic Conference, where we saw how hope is lived out through “Charisms in the Life and Mission of the Church,” each of our six adult conferences reached down into the depths of hope, helping you remember why you hope, in what you hope, and how you are to hope.
Please take some time to explore the conference information on this site. We enjoyed having you here and look forward to serving you and seeing you on campus next summer!
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