+JMJ+
On the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
Our Lady is the Mother Holy Hope. All it takes is for a poor sinner to call upon her and ask for her prayers on his (or her) behalf, and she will petition her son. She is the Mother of Holy Hope, because she petitions for the good of the souls entrusted to her care. This is the will of God, that people should come to his son, but know that they must do so with humility and a desire to grow in obedience to Him, and he created the perfect person for this act of redemption of Man-kind. In other words, God the Father did not create Jesus, his only son, but Jesus was the first 'thought' of God, as Jesus Christ is begotten and not made. From the love God the Father has for his son, comes the Holy Spirit, who is also the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God chose* Mary as also an example to truly love Him as a creature made in His own image. (*Note: He created her "full of grace", but she also fulfilled His perfect Will by remaining under complete obedience to the fullness of grace given to her, therefore, it is right to also say that God chose Mary.) The Blessed Virgin Mother was not only the first Christian, but remains the greatest Christian, and more powerful by her intercession than all other saints combined. A true follower of Christ is obedient to God and His Commandments, as Christ says so himself, "He who says he loves me, yet fails to keep the Commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." He also commands that the Christian keep to the traditions he gave them through the Apostles. Therefore, the Apostles knew Christ witnessed to his intention and work towards their being only one (1) church, and referred to her as Christ's "bride."
Likewise, the Blessed Mother's role also points to the relationship of Christ to the Church, as the Holy Spirit is espoused to the Blessed Mother. Just as anyone who detests the Church will detest Our Lady, conversely, anyone who says they love our Lady and yet fails to love the Church or who says they love the Church and not our Lady, is a liar. He who says he loves Christ, and does not love his holy Mother is not worthy in the least bit to be called Christian, that is meaning, "a follower of Christ." Nothing is separated from the Person's the Holy Trinity, and the dignity the 3 Persons of God have bestowed upon the Blessed Mother requires one to pay her honor for this simple fact that God honors her.
There is also a connection to obedience to the Commandments and hyperdulia** paid to the Mother of God the Son (**hyperdulia is the honor due to the Blessed Mother, which is separate from the worship due to God alone, which is latria. Incidentally, dulia is the worship due to the saints, therefore, as 'hyper' denotes 'above' the worship of (other) saints, the Church says that honor above all the other saints is due to the Blessed Mother). Those who refuse to obey God by the traditions he has ordained to give grace that does not "cover" but actually transforms the heart and mind of the recipient (see about the 'new wine' in "The Wedding Feast of Cana" in the Bible), also not only resist but tend to despise adoration due to the God by honoring Mary, since she is the perfect example of the greatest obedience to Him (see, also, devotion to "Our Lady of Sorrows").
Since the Blessed Mother seeks to intercede for those who wish to sincerely serve Christ in this short life, she is our hope -- our holy hope.
Conversely, the devil who knows he could never outshine the honor due to Our Lady, in his jealousy, he looks to steal hope away from people's hearts. That loss of holy hope is the first to go, which allows the sinner to be further misdirected away from things that will bring it to the right course. The loss of holy hope can be imperceptible to most, as it is not in what is seen but what is not seen. There is an avoidance of worship of God for HIS sake to the point that people will have ambivalence as to how they worship at all. The loss of the sense of the sacred grows like a fast growing disease. People will look for satiation in created goods and feelings and their expressions rather than God Himself for Himself. The sense of transcendence of God is lost, and they place their false faith in their fickle emotions and vanities. These are all signs of loss of holy hope. Then there is a type of loss of holy hope in despair, where it is basically the result of the former, along with even greater wounds of sin, whether actuated by the sinner and/or the sins of others of which they were effected. The devil doesn't like to work hard at all, and when he can have someone else do much of his work for him, he just sits, waits, watches, and then takes advantage of someone in their particularly weakened state. Then, he introduces thoughts that are in error much more easily. The way of the world today is not only to justify these lies, but to defend these disordered ideas as ideals, which truly proves from whom they come. Disorder and chaos replaces order and true peace by supplanting reason with emotions that come specifically from wounded souls lacking in the infused virtue of hope.
Sometimes the attack on the virtue of hope can come to even pious souls. This is because the devil looking for a weak area in charity, which is firstly the love of God for HIS sake, because He is all good and all deserving of all one's love. Avoidance of God, much less the Cross, the avoidance of suffering or even looking to gain something out of suffering other than glory to and for God, are all areas open for attack. The counter to this is the pursuit of virtue for God's glory, through the means of deliberate requests to grow in the virtue, particularly that of holy hope, through Our Lady.
Christ's mother knew from the very beginning of her "Fiat" to God the Father, that she would also suffer, as her son would suffer, since she was raised to know the prophecies of the prophets, especially that of Isaiah. The gave her, "Thy Will be done" to God for His glory, not her own, knowing that she would be glorified by Him for this, but completely detached from what suffering or good would come to her. Everything was for God, and today, nothing has changed:
Our Mother of Holy Hope does everything for the glory of God.
+AMDG+
