ARCHBISHOP NAUMANN’S CALENDAR

May 5

Confirmation — John Paul II, Olathe

May 6

Kansans for Life banquet — Overland Park

Women’s Conference for Healing and Forgiveness Mass — Holy Trinity, Lenexa

May 7

Pastoral visit — St. Patrick, Kansas City, Kansas

Community of the Lamb pilgrimage Mass

May 8

Pastoral Council meeting — chancery

May 9

Papal Foundation rosary

Administrative Team meeting — chancery

Ethics Council meeting — chancery

May 10

Confirmation for Christ the King and Blessed Sacrament parishes — Blessed Sacrament Church, Kansas City, Kansas

May 11

Marriage and family life leaders Region IX — Savior

Confirmation (Spanish) — Blessed Sacrament

May 12

Benedictine College Baccalaureate Mass it is their ideologies that dominate many institutions of higher education.

What then is the basis for Christian hope? It is in a good and benevolent God, who has loved us into existence. It is in God, who despite sin — our rebellion against him — continues to reveal himself to us. It is our faith in a God who humbled himself to immerse himself in our humanity so that we could share in his divine and eternal life. Our hope is anchored in a God who has created us to be in communion with him.

Only the love of God, available to each of us, can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts. No matter the external circumstances of our lives, nothing can separate us from the love of God — not physical suffering, emotional distress, adversity, persecution or even death itself.

St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians gave one of the best descriptions for Christian hope: “But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (4:7-11).

“Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (4:16-18).

What a blessing is our Catholic faith! What a grace it is to have a hope that nothing in the world can diminish, much less destroy!