During his homily at the Mass in Washington, and indeed in all of his appearances, Pope Benedict declared that he had come to bring a message of hope to the American Church and, indeed, to the whole world. In doing so, he was reiterating the message that he had given in his encyclical letter which is called "Saved by Hope." And he gave the same message to the bishops of Mexico when they went as a body, as a group, to meet with him. And speaking to them he said, "Confronted by today's changing and complex panorama, the virtue of hope is subjected to harsh trials for believers. For this reason, we must be apostles who are filled with hope and joyful trust in God's promises."

Well, I'm going to try to give that same message today -- even though I'm not wearing red shoes! I know that I've told you before about the incident when I met with the manager of one of the casinos up in Tahoe. That would be about maybe 30 years ago. And in the course of the conversation he said to me, "You know, Father, I think that you and I are in the same business." Well, I looked at him and said, "What do you mean?" He says, "Well," he said, "we're  both selling hope."

You got it? I trust that that's what I have been at least trying to do for the past 52 years of my ministry: trying to instill hope in people, believing in the promises of Jesus, and trusting His word.

Some time ago, I read this story about a Portuguese priest in the what were then Portuguese colonies, oh, long ago now. And he was adamantly opposed to the slavery that was rampant in those days and was supported by the government, approved by the government. And he was constantly preaching against this. So he caused a lot of enemies, and they finally persuaded the government to bring him to trial as a traitor to his country. And he was condemned to death, he was to die by a firing squad.

Now, I don't know, but I'm speculating that this incident may well have been the background or the cause of -- do you know that movie The Mission? Came out maybe 15 years ago, or something like that. Great movie. Well, anyway, he's there in the prison yard facing the firing squad, his executioners, and he's asked if he has any last wish before he dies. Well, he said, "Yes. I would like to play my flute  for the last time." Well, the music just filled that prison yard, and it lingered on in the minds of his executioners as a question: In the face of certain death, where does the music come from?

Well, in the second reading today from the Letter of Peter, the early Christian community is told always have your answer ready for the people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. Always have an answer.

What is our answer? Well, surely, for us Christians, it must be must be the words and the deeds of Jesus' promises, his life, his death, his resurrection. Hope that is grounded in Jesus Christ is the virtue that enables us to look to the future with real confidence, and it's based on a faith that enables us to accept the teaching and promises of Jesus. And that, indeed, is where the music comes from.

Now, we must not confuse hope with wishful thinking. You know, you could spend the whole day daydreaming about how you're going to spend your lottery winnings. But you know there's no real foundation for hope there. Wishful thinking has no bounds. It bears very little relationship to what is actually possible. 

Now, hope is entirely different. Hope has a foundation in reality. The Jewish writer Martin Buber said, "Hope imagines the real." And that's the difference between hope and daydreaming. Hope imagines the real. And so it's limited. It's limited by possibility. And so it needs help. Our hope needs help. For example, we hope for peace. We may pray every day for peace, but our hope needs help. It needs help from world leaders, from religious leaders, from leaders of various factions in the world, from people of goodwill, and from our own personal decisions -- needs that help if it is to be more than just a prayer.

Well, Jesus made certain that his followers would not be left without help. And so in today's gospel we hear him saying: I will ask the father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you always. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. He promised the Spirit, the advocate, that would be with them and with us to help them, to help them and us, figuratively speaking, to play that flute, to make the music in the face of persecution and death.

Yes, we Christians today need the presence of the Spirit just as much as those early Christians  did. We need that presence of the Spirit to bolster our hope. For, as the Pope said, the challenges to hope are really very great in today's world.

How can we face the world? How can we hope in the presence of the seemingly unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the genocide in Darfur, global warming, impending world shortages of food, the housing crisis, rising prices, untamed violence in our streets? How can we hope? Where is this hope?

Well, we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to be with us and to help us to hope even in the face of these realities. And the Holy Spirit helps us by deepening our faith in the promises of Jesus Christ. That's it. That's it. Deep and profound. Without Jesus, there's nothing but despair.

The Holy Spirit helps us also by reminding us that our hope must be bolstered by our own involvement, by our own actions. We have to be involved in this world. We can't simply say these things are for somebody else to solve. We have to be involved. We have to do our part in the community to try to bring about a more just society, a more caring society. We have to vote and try to elect leaders who will be really responsive and who will make an honest and sincere effort to tackle the problems that  face our world.

So let us always have our answer ready for the people who ask us the reasons for the hope that we have. And those reasons are very simple. The loving Father, the forgiving Son, the inspiring and helping Spirit. These are the foundations, the reasons for our hope. It is these who will help us to make music, even in the face of death. Amen.