Church of St. Chrysogonus, Rome.

We’re here in Rome, taking up Pope Francis’ invitation to be “pilgrims of hope”. We come bringing with us in our heart the many people we love and care about, the intentions of family members, friends and neighbours who have asked us to pray for them, as well as our hopes and dreams for our future, the future of our family and our country. We’ve gone through the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica. We’ve heard about the Indulgences. And now we come to that most sacred of moments, the Eucharist, our personal encounter with the Risen Christ present among us in his Word, in his Body and Blood and in his Community gathered in his name.

Yesterday, on the drive up to Dublin airport from Limerick, a lorry in front of me had the words “Timing is everything”. We know we have come on pilgrimage at a time of turmoil at so many levels. When we first booked to come on this pilgrimage, I’m sure we had hoped we’d meet the Pope. That is now very unlikely. He is sick and frail, and we remember him in our prayers.

More ominously, we think of the timing of our pilgrimage in terms of the world scenario right now. It is a time of great concern regarding how moral and civil rights and liberties seem to be eroding in so many places where heretofore they were acclaimed. Mutual distrust in relationships between people and between states is increasing. We see the diplomatic courtesies, even norms of engagement, vanish with political leaders publicly belittling others. Assaults on the dignity of those whose life is at its most vulnerable stages – early life and end of life – are on the increase everywhere. The vulnerable and poor continue to be forgotten. And all of this in a kind of an increasing political and social amnesia – we forget the tears of our ancestors’ experiences that planted the seeds of hope for a better world, we forget the lessons of the post-World War II recognition of the need to promote unity and siblinghood, we forget the foundation peace and reconciliation vision of the European Union. And so, irony of ironies, we can end up with an Irish man stridently voicing an anti-immigration message in the White House on St. Patrick’s Day, the very day of the celebration of our most famous Immigrant who brought us the Christian faith!

And with all of that, the continuing background drumbeat of horrible wars. In Gaza, where this week alone almost 600 were killed; in Ukraine with its terrible bloodshed. There are unspeakable atrocities in Congo, over 1,000 more killed recently in Syria; there’s warfare in Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Yemen…

It seems to be such a dark time for so much that we hold dear – respect and protection of human life. So much so that there is such a great need for hope in our world. Pope Francis’ decision to declare 2025 a ‘Jubilee Year of Hope’ was entirely prescient to help cast a light in that darkness.

We most likely won’t meet the Pope while here but I thought it would be good to imagine, what would the Pope say to us if we had a private audience with him. I think he would remind us that Hope is both a gift and a task. On the one hand, we have to implore God for the gift. And that is what we do on this pilgrimage. But the Pope would also underline for us how much hope is a task. We are to be bearers of hope, promotes of hope, builders of hope. To help us focus, I suggest Pope Francis would offer us three things: an image to help us, a motto to live by and an exercise to help us train!

An image. The image of the anchor. Scripture speaks of Jesus Christ as our anchor of hope. In Jesus Christ, God has reached each one of us and our world deeply, laid down his life for us and declared to us: “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I know my plans for you, plans for you to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer 29). This is the foundation of our hope. This is what we need to keep renewing. We need to keep anchoring ourselves in the belief that God is not distant, removed from us somewhere in the sky, or a detached superior being above history and our day-to-day lives. Quite the opposite. The Risen Jesus is journeying with us. He is continuing his work of reconciliation and he wants to be present in our world through you and me. Yes, let’s take the image of the “anchor” and decide in our hearts on this pilgrimage that we will always be anchored in this belief and recognise our calling. No matter what happens, no matter what has happened, no matter what is happening, God is with me, God has given me a task, God is calling me/us to be a bearer, bearers of hope as we journey along the pathways of history, even if the darkest moments.

The motto. The second recommendation from Pope Francis would be a “motto”. A good motto that Pope Francis might suggest to us is to repeat often to ourselves: “begin again always”. This is important if we want to be a person of hope. It’ easy to become dragged down and imprisoned by our own personal failures, sins and mistakes of the past or present, as well as the failures of others we see around us or hear about in the news. We know it’s easy to fall. The Patron of Europe, Edith Stein gave good advice when she wrote: “And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.”  And then out to begin again, to love, to promote peace, to make a difference. We don’t have to wait for the nighttime examination of conscience and act of sorrow. We need to begin again always throughout the day.

Martin Luther king, the famous civil rights campaigner who was gunned down in America is famous for being a man of hope. We all know of his “I have a dream” speech. Martin Luther King knew opposition and many of his dreams shattered. But he kept going, beginning again always, taking whatever step he could take. He recommended: “If you can’t fly — then run. If you can’t run — then walk. If you can’t walk — then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

Chiara Lubich the Italian woman, now Servant of God who founded the Focolare Movement commented: “If our every gesture, every word and every attitude is full of love, it will be like that of Jesus. Like him, we will be bearers of joy and hope, of harmony and peace, that is, of a world reconciled to God, which the whole of creation awaits.”

The third word from Pope Francis would be a suggestion for an exercise we can do each day. Train yourselves in seeing signs of hope. Each day, at the end of the day, look back and see where I have noticed signs of hope today, in myself in overcoming an adversity or in others – a generous gesture, a smile, a good news story. It’s a good exercise to do. It’s a training that can make a difference. A few months ago, Pope Francis shared a personal example of how he recalled an event that was a sign of hope. “Some time ago I had the opportunity to dialogue with two exceptional witnesses of hope, two fathers: one Israeli, Rami; one Palestinian, Bassam. Both lost daughters in the conflict that has bloodied the Holy Land for too many decades now. But nonetheless, in the name of their pain, the suffering they felt at the death of their two little daughters – Smadar and Abir – they have become friends, indeed brothers: they live forgiveness and reconciliation as a concrete, prophetic and authentic gesture. Meeting them gave me so much, so much hope. Their friendship and brotherhood taught me it is possible that hatred, concretely, may not have the last word. The reconciliation they experience as individuals, a prophecy of a larger and broader reconciliation, is an invincible sign of hope. And hope opens us to unimaginable horizons.”

So, on this first day of our pilgrimage, let’s take the three suggestions that Pope Francis would offer us so that we might take up the task of being bearers of hope in a dark troubled time for our world: be anchored in the hope that comes in Jesus Christ, always begin again, train ourselves in seeing signs of hope.