Tag Archives: hope

Easter with Pope Francis

Resurrection icon

For Easter Sunday 2005, Pope Francis wrote a beautiful homily to be read in the morning Mass in St Peter’s Square by the celebrant, Cardinal Angelo Comastri. Less than 24 hours later, God called Pope Francis to eternal life with him. In this meditation, we use the text of that homily to consider how:

  • Mary Magdalene, and the apostles Peter and John, all ran in their eagerness to find Jesus
  • We too should be eager to find Jesus, who waits for us in our prayer, in the Scriptures, in Mass, in our workplace, in our family…
  • We should welcome Jesus into our heart so that we, in turn, can share him with others
  • Jesus’ resurrection from the dead fills our life with the hope that we too can overcome the difficulties and crosses that weigh us down
  • The ultimate object of our hope is eternal life with God in heaven

The Journey to Easter

A depiction of the risen Christ

Lent is an annual opportunity to accompany Jesus in his forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert and in his suffering and death on Mount Calvary to his resurrection on Easter Sunday. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture and of Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2025 to consider how:

  • Lent symbolises our own journey through life to our death and resurrection to eternal life.
  • It is a journey filled with hope
  • If we live it well, we will have a true springtime, a new blossoming of our spiritual life
  • As Jesus was generous in suffering and dying out of love for us, we should show our love for him by being generous in the way we live Lent
  • We can choose areas of struggle from the the three traditional aspects of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, or charity

Hope in the Lord

Hope in the Lord

Everyone has issues in life which give rise to uncertainty about the future, to doubts and even anxiety. In this meditation we pray about the virtue which gives reassurance in these situations, the important virtue of hope. We use Pope Francis’ document  for the Jubilee Year 2025, Spes non confundit, a beautiful commentary on hope, to consider how:

  • In the face of problems, hope in God fills us with confidence that there will be a solution
  • The ultimate object of hope is eternal life with God in heaven
  • Hope is founded on God’s love for everyone
  • Mary is the model and intercessor before God to give us hope

Hope in the Resurrection

Th resurection of our lord Jesus Christ the principal message of Easter.

When the women went at dawn to anoint the body of Christ on Easter Sunday, they didn’t know how they would remove the huge stone that closed the tomb. To their surprise, they found the stone already removed. In this meditation we use the homily of Pope Francis in the Easter Vigil in St Peter’s Basilica in 2024 to consider how:

  • There are many stones in our own life which may seem like insurmountable obstacles
  • Over the years these problems, by the grace of God, have been solved
  • The Resurrection of Christ fills us with hope that our present problems will also be solved

The Light of Easter

Christ is risen. Easter.

The resurrection of Christ brings light into a world in darkness. That darkness may be of unbelief, of sin, of lack of hope. In all cases, Christ is the light who can dispel the darkness with the light of his Resurrection. In this meditation we consider how we can respond to this light of  Christ in three ways:

  • Accepting the light
  • Keeping the light alive and making it burn more brightly
  • Sharing the light with others

Faith and joy in the Resurrection

The Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday fills us with faith and joy. In this meditation we consider:

  • The sadness and sorrow of Christ’s disciples after his death on the Cross
  • The various accounts in the Gospels of Christ’s appearances after his Resurrection
  • The faith and joy of the holy women and the apostles when they see Christ risen from the dead
  • We too go through crosses in life and can draw strength from them, knowing that God allows them for our greater good and that we will have a resurrection to eternal life

Growing in hope

We all have situations in which we wish something were different but we are not in a position to change it by ourselves: our job, finances, health, relationships, etc. In these circumstances we can sometimes become discouraged. It is then that we need to grow in hope, to trust more in God. In this meditation we pray about this important virtue, drawing on Scripture, the Catechism, Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi  and St Josemaria’s book The Way to consider:

  • The nature of hope
  • How God is always with us and will give us what is best
  • How we should know that God is close to us especially when we are suffering
  • How we can grow in hope especially through prayer

On the road to Emmaus

In the afternoon of the Resurrection, two discouraged disciples of Jesus left Jerusalem for the nearby town of Emmaus. Christ met them on the way and engaged them in conversation, showing them from the Scriptures how the Messiah was meant to suffer and die. When they reached Emmaus the discipes begged Jesus to stay with them and when they recognised him in the breaking of the bread they returned to Jerusalem. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Christ is always there for us when we are going through hard times.
  • We should beg Jesus to stay with us and we should keep him close always, especially when we are experiencing difficulties.
  • Like the disciples did with Jesus, we should open our hearts to the one who guides us in our spiritual life
  • Our hearts, like those of the disciples, will burn within us when we encounter our Lord in prayer, the Scriptures and the sacraments.
  • Our Lord sends us out, as he did the apostles, to announce to others the good news of his love for mankind.

Christ our Hope

Jesus Christ is our hope.

In the ups and downs of life there are many events which are not in our control, where we can only put our hope in God. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture and Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Saved by hope to put our life on a sure foundation. We consider that:

  • The foundation of our hope is God, who is always with us.
  • Our hope in God enables us to find peace and joy even amidst the uncertainties and sufferings of life.
  • The ultimate object of our hope is eternal life with God in heaven.
  • We can grow in hope through prayer in its various forms.
  • Mary, our Mother, is our hope: she brings us hope in the person of Jesus, she lives hope herself in many moments, and she intercedes powerfully for us in heaven.

Going home: the Christian meaning of life and death

Many people look on death with dread, as the sad ending of it all. With Christian faith we look on it very differently, as our final journey home to eternal life with God. Our Lord has told us that he has gone ahead to prepare a room for us in the Father’s house (cf. John 14: 2-3). This is what awaits us if we live and die well. In this meditation we consider:

  • The Christian meaning of life and death
  • The many passages of the Bible that speak to us of our preparation for eternal life with God
  • The need to be prepared at every moment to meet Our Lord
  • The importance of storing up treasure in heaven, not on earth
  • Our longing to be with God in heaven