19 December

This Wave of Hope reflection for Advent comes from Father James Hanvey SJ, Secretary for the Service of Faith of the Society of Jesus.

Fr Hanvey found hope in how people gathered in St Peter’s Square to pray for Pope Francis as he was dying:

“It was a grace just to be one of the crowd. No, not an anonymous crowd, but the Holy People of God, a Church at prayer, simply and with faith and with hope. I knew that whatever the situation of the world – its wars, its sufferings, the rise and decline of all its powers – this was the Church here, now, and in this place, the church of ordinary people that would endure and carry its love and its prayer for the whole world.”

Wave of Hope offers 25 short multimedia reflections for the season – one a day – as our contributors share a moment in 2025 that has led them to a place of hope.

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Transcript

Hello. My name is Father James Hanvey. I am the Secretary for the Service of Faith of the Society of Jesus. I live in Rome at our central office, and I advise the General of the Society on matters related to faith.

Hope can surprise us. It’s not bound by a particular time or a particular place, as Mary and Joseph discovered. During the final illness of Pope Francis, while he was in hospital, every evening there was a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square for him. It was very simple. People gathered to say the rosary led by a cardinal and concluded with a short musical piece by a few voices from the Vatican choir. It had a simplicity which Francis would have liked. And even more, the piazza was filled with people from all over the world and of every age. Priests and religious, young people, young families, older people, and I suspect not just members of the Catholic Church. There was no fuss or distraction, but a quiet recollection focused on the mysteries of the rosary, the mystery of Mary’s life, Christ’s life, and of our lives, too. The square was filled with prayer, with love for the dying Pope, and a deep sense of our own belonging to this community, here and now, gathered. Yet, strangely, it was not just us, it was the Universal Church.

For me, it was a grace just to be one of the crowd. No, not an anonymous crowd, but the Holy People of God, a Church at prayer, simply and with faith and with hope. I knew that whatever the situation of the world – its wars, its sufferings, the rise and decline of all its powers – this was the Church here, now, and in this place, the church of ordinary people that would endure and carry its love and its prayer for the whole world.

After the prayer, like everyone else, I left the square and returned to whatever work I still had to do. But I was still confirmed in hope, and I knew that like Pope Francis, long after my own life had ended, this is the Church that will continue and whose prayers would never cease.

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