Welcome to daily Rosary meditations with Dr. Mike Schurslick, where you learn how to meditate

and establish a daily habit of prayer while discovering the truths of the Catholic faith.

Is there someone you know that could benefit from daily prayer?

Share this meditation with them. We're Welcome to our daily Rosary meditation.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

As we've been saying, hope is the virtue that causes us to

strive after a deep union with Jesus and heaven as our destiny, but a destiny that's not guaranteed.

This means that there are two sins against hope. One is presumption where we don't bother striving for

heaven because we think it's already in the bag, but the other sin against hope is despair.

And it's a vice we all have to be on our guard against.

Now, we can all feel down sometimes. We all feel discouraged and daunted.

We all feel tempted to give up. That's not the sin of despair.

It's the feeling of despair. It's a

a temptation and temptation and temptation isn't a sin. The Saints have been tempted

with desolation and discouragement, but they didn't despair because they didn't give up. They didn't quit.

Now, feeling down isn't a mark of despair any more than feeling upbeat is a sign of hope.

After all, some people experience a dreadful relief and a hideous cheerfulness

when they've resolved to commit suicide.

That kind of upbeat giddiness can be just the exuberance of someone who's let go of the rope

and is feeling the rush of falling to their own destruction.

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