April 2025: Editorial

Voices of Hope

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Holy Week and Easter invite us to quiet the despairing noises of daily life and instead listen for the voices of hope God sends us each day. These voices speak through the compassionate word, the gentle gesture of love, the emergence of new life from the soil, the light breaking through the sky, and the profound truth revealed by the crosses we bear. Above all, they proclaim that death has been conquered by the Lord of life. Hope is sustained when we attune our hearts to God’s voice in these moments, reflecting on the empty tomb and embracing the confidence expressed by the poet Swinburne: ‘Blossom by blossom, the spring begins.’

     Lorcan Kenny, in his series of Easter meditations Seven Voices of Hope, offers a poignant reflection: ‘The good we do, we write in the sand. The mistakes we make, we write in stone.’ He attributes these words to St Peter, who was haunted and paralysed by his denial of Christ and his absence in Jesus’ darkest hour. This image stands in stark contrast to that of Simon of Cyrene, who declares, ‘The day I lifted that man’s burden was the day I became free.’ Both men were profoundly transformed by the Easter experience and the hope it brought them.

     In another meditation, the apostle John reassures Peter: ‘The mistakes we make, He washes away in the sand. The good you will do, you will build on rock.’ These voices of hope, rising from the Easter story, have the power to drown out the voices of derision and despair. For where flowers bloom, so too does hope.