Thought for the Week

A word that we read often in the scriptures is ‘hope’.

The psalms encourage us to hope in God. Jeremiah reassures us that God will give us a future full of hope.

Job tells us there is always hope for a tree, even if it is cut down, that it will sprout again.

Of course the entire gospel conveys a hope-filled message of salvation and new life but sometimes we are tempted to lose sight of hope.

We live in a world that has often forgotten the concepts of goodness, beauty, truth, integrity.

Daily we hear of the sufferings of people who are the innocent victims of war, violence, and hatred.

Thousands of children die every day from malnutrition, hunger or diseases that could be prevented by a more generous sharing of the world’s resources.

How can we convey a message of hope to these people? What can we do to help them?

There are no easy answers to these immense problems.

Even on our own doorstep and within our own families we find much that gives cause for concern.

There is one thing we can do, however: we can hold these concerns in our hearts. By that I do not mean that we should simply think about them but pray about them because we truly meet Christ in the poor, the afflicted and the suffering.

When we pray for others we can and do in some inexplicable way contribute to the pursuit of peace throughout the universe, simply by sitting in silence and stillness, repeating our word in faith and in love.

It is a mystery how this happens, understood only in the light of faith. Rev Bill McMillan Parish deacon St Columbkille’s RC Church