Hope is, like all virtues, a practice. It is autobiographical, the story of the one who possesses it, “stretching [that story] forward to its best possible ending.”84 Like the unity and direction of a good narrative—or a pilgrimage—hope leads one to consider oneself within the context of one’s story, stretching it forward to its best possible ending. The man in possession of merely the hope that is a natural passion does not see the hope that comes only from God: participation in the new heaven and the new earth.
