We are tempted to put our hope in a lot of things, and these begin to consume us. Some are good things: we place trust in friends, in our reputation, in the just satisfaction that comes from a job well done. But you know the day will come when even those legitimate, good objects of trust will let us down; so if we put total trust in even these legitimate things, we will one day be disappointed . . . Even our friends will eventually move, or drift away, or let us down . . . We cherish them and need them, but we cannot place all our hope in them either. In our life we cannot hope in big salaries, signs of favor from our employers, wide acclaim. If they come, we accept them with Ignatian indifference, grateful, but able to get along just as well without them . . . As rector at the North American College, I would tell first year men on the first day they arrived, “You have left home, family, friends, security, predictability . . . Everything has changed but one thing – your faith in and relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And perhaps the genius of study here in Rome, away from all that is familiar and reliable, is to teach us that He and He alone is the ultimate source of our hope – to count on anything or anyone else in this life will ultimately lead to disappointment.”

-Archbishop Timothy Dolan