SEARCH Journal

Through troubled waters

I OPEN with this popular quote from an unknown author today as one who stands here having put his hope in the Lord. I am not an academic or a theologian. What I plan to share with you today is some of my experience as a young priest in parish ministry, relishing the words of Isaiah: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 -32.

I OPEN with this popular quote from an unknown author today as one who stands here having put his hope in the Lord. I am not an academic or a theologian. What I plan to share with you today is some of my experience as a young priest in parish ministry, relishing the words of Isaiah: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 -32.

Hope is a foundational feeling in Christianity. It is integral to faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That visibility and invisibility of faith and hope is something which is important in the pastoral context. For example the hymn ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, written in 1868 by a rector of Philadelphia, after looking down on the night- time Bethlehem on a trip to the Holy Land, includes the famous lines:

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

* Full article available in printed copies.

Sean Hanily

is rector of Rathmichael and Deputy Diocesan Registrar, Dublin diocese.