Abstract

Human life in all its complexity, despite of all earthly experiences has its definite end. This would be true, if hope and faith were inexistent. The Holy Word thoroughly informs the whole of mankind that there is much more to life than its episode here on earth. It portrays human life as a journey through all kinds of experiences. The “valley of death”, which is mentioned in Psalms, always appears as a fragment of the existential journey. Human life, lived with hope and faith in consideration to its greatest gift of freedom, can result and lead to salvation. The metaphor of the Psalm 23 indicates that man’s living place deprived of hope is a “valley of death” stretched over his entire life span. Christianity presents a project of life and death in which faith and hope, despite of psychological wound, can overcome the feeling of hopelessness. Hope is the key that opens the doors of freedom, salvation and in the end a great journey of eternal happiness. Today emphasizes the anthropological aspect of reflecting human desires and satisfactions. ‘To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality—this we can only attempt’. My text is an analysis of life in hope and hope in life in the context of “Spe Salvi” of Pope Benedict XVI.