“Hope can be genuine anticipation and expectation of a new day, a new possibility of life. It can be confidence that the future is for us and not against us. Hope usually looks to the future not as a threat to what is, but as an open field of possibilities for human achievement and well-being” (James Gustafson).

“Christian hope takes our present distress and puts it in the context of final triumph and joy. It enables us to accept without tiredness or apathy the long interval which separates our present here-and-now from God’s fulfillment” (Thomas Cullinan).

Lent began on Ash Wednesday. We don’t usually associate hope with Lent.  However, I propose that we spend some quality time during the season of Lent reflecting on the signs of hope in and around us. We have already been living a kind of “lent” for almost a year with Covid-19.