In Dom Anscar Vonier's book The Spirit and the Bride there is a short chapter entitled "The Bride's Hope". The chapter suggests that, through the living presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, there is a perfection of hope that is intrinsic to the Church and is more than the sum total of the individual hopes of believers or local communities.
What we may truly call the official hope of the Church is an overwhelming reality; there is simply no vestige of hesitation in any acts and movements of the Church concerning her power to obtain eternal life. This is manifested before all men through the Church's way of praying. Ecclesiastical prayer is the visible sign of the Church's hope; she hopes as she prays, and she prays as she hopes. Now of the Church's prayer there is no end; it is an unceasing stream, unfathomable in its depth, though all eyes can behold its surface. If the Church ceased to pray, her life of hope also would come to an end.... More truly than Moses on the mountain, the Bride is stretching forth her arms in supplication, and she is not in need of any supporters, as she know of no lassitude, for the power of the Spirit is in her.
If you are familiar with Edith Stein's essay "The Prayer of the Church", Anscar Vonier's chapter is a natural jumping off point to a re-reading of that essay. In English translation it is published in the Institute of Carmelite Studies collected works of Edith Stein vol. 4 The Hidden Life. The essay makes some striking comparisons between the Jewish liturgy and the Christian liturgy, reflecting Edith Stein's own lived experience, and is worth reading for those insights alone.
... it is not a question of placing the inner prayer free of all traditional forms as "subjective" piety in contrast to the liturgy as the "objective" prayer of the Church. All authentic prayer is prayer of the Church. Through every sincere prayer something happens in the Church, and it is the Church itself that is praying therein, for it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church that intercedes for every individual soul "with sighs too deep for words". This is exactly what authentic prayer is, for "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit". What could the prayer of the Church be, if not great lovers giving themselves to God who is love!
Anscar Vonier places the expression of hope within the Church's prayer since that prayer shows an absolute confidence in the ability of the Church to gain eternal life for the persons who are the object of that prayer. A connection can be made to the words of the Jubilee prayer:
May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
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