Lumen Fidei - page 78

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all their pain or to explain every evil. Faith is not
a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp
which guides our steps in the night and suffices
for the journey. To those who suffer, God does
not provide arguments which explain everything;
rather, his response is that of an accompanying
presence, a history of goodness which touches
every story of suffering and opens up a ray of
light. In Christ, God himself wishes to share this
path with us and to offer us his gaze so that we
might see the light within it. Christ is the one who,
having endured suffering, is “the pioneer and per-
fecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2).
Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to
the common good is always one of hope — a
hope which looks ever ahead in the knowledge
that only from God, from the future which
comes from the risen Jesus, can our society find
solid and lasting foundations. In this sense faith
is linked to hope, for even if our dwelling place
here below is wasting away, we have an eternal
dwelling place which God has already prepared
in Christ, in his body (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-5:5). The
dynamic of faith, hope and charity (cf. 1 Th 1:3;
1 Cor 13:13) thus leads us to embrace the con-
cerns of all men and women on our journey
towards that city “whose architect and builder
is God” (Heb 11:10), for “hope does not disap-
point” (Rom 5:5).
In union with faith and charity, hope propels
us towards a sure future, set against a different
horizon with regard to the illusory enticements