"With the Lord for his hope". These words of Jeremiah, are a salutary reminder that our Christian hope can never be a mere emotion or sentiment, never a mere optimism or bright attitude. Our hope is a person, the person of God Himself. While Paul in our second reading speaks about "our hope in Christ", in another of his letters [Colossians 1:27] he speaks about Christ Himself amongst as our "hope of glory". Jesus is in His own person the gifts which He brings. Thus, Jesus brings the truth of God to us, and so He can say "I am the truth" [John 14:6]. This is true of every gift. Jesus brings us hope, and so he is in person our hope. During Advent, we looked forward to the celebration of Christmas, and our liturgies were full of the theme of hope and expectancy. Christmas celebrated the birth of hope, for the birth of Jesus liberated us from darkness and the shadow of death. It is only by accepting Jesus totally into our lives that we can continue to enjoy that hope which He brought us and which, in His own person, He is: Jesus, Son of God, our hope.