Over the years there have been many times when someone in a bible study I’m leading will say, “I don’t know how anyone who doesn’t have faith can make it through (fill in the blank).”

There are several difficult situations that could complete that sentence. And each time the discussion comes back to the fact that it is the person’s faith that gives them hope. Life without hope is no life, or at least not a quality of life anyone wants to live.

Naturally, there are moments when you can be hanging by a string of hope, especially in moments of tragedy. But these are the moments in question, because from their own experience, when these moments occur (and they could last for a few minutes or a few days or dreadfully more), it has been their faith that helped them recalibrate and have hope.

As the final weeks of Lent draw near, I can’t help but think of what is coming, Holy Week. To me the Triduum is a series of highs and lows, ending with the only day in the church calendar that is without hope and that is Holy Saturday. It is the day without Jesus. It is the day when the apostles’ lives were upended and all they knew and believed in was gone.

Today, believers know that Easter is coming but the apostles did not. It is this knowledge that keeps me in pursuit of hope, in pursuit of God’s plan and in pursuit of living life to the fullest.