Hope is the very condition for the possibility of believing and loving. It is openness to the light of faith and to the action of love. Hope is the capacity in each of us that is open to God's truth and love. It is that quality in the human being that is open to possibility, to new things happening.
Hope is also the driving force of all human initiative, the undercurrent of all human activity. It impels and propels. It looks for the coming of the new, that which has never been before. Hope is the dynamism that carries us from now to then, inclining us to look from the present to the future, from what is still to come and on to what might yet be. Hope is the great virtue of the human person in via, on the way. The betrayal of hope lies in despair as anticipated failure and in presumption as anticipated fulfillment. In both betrayals of hope, traditionally known as sins against hope, we try to deny our existence as pilgrims, wanting instead to assure the end results, control what lies beyond us, and have our lives otherwise than from the hand of God.
— Michael Downey, Hope Begins Where Hope Begins