FR JULIAN'S WEEKLY BLOG
11/01/26
Looking at what I said last week about hope that the world’s conflicts would end justly, in light of the news which has dominated this week, that hope may seem to be diminishing. But we must never under-estimate the power and significance of hope. Pope wrote: ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast/Man [sic] never is but to be blest.’ And St Paul, writing to the Church in Rome, says, ‘Hope is not deceptive’.
Too often we limit hope to that vague, unrealistic feeling that we experience when we buy a lottery ticket, or enter into an unknown situation, or face a future yet to be determined. It is something which can underpin courage; a supporting role, rather than the starring part. And so hope is diminished, especially when our misunderstanding of what it really is leads to disappointment.
It may seem to be back in the distant past now, but it was only a fortnight or so that we were singing ‘the hopes and fears of all the years/are met in thee tonight’. In Christ, born amongst us, God is giving us the gift beyond all imagining, the gift of hope. A hope which is based on something real, tangible, audible, visible: his eternal presence amongst us all. It is the reality of this hope which enables us to face disappointment, setbacks and fear, for this world and the next.​
04/01/26
Still within the 12 Days of Christmas, we are now also contending with the New Year! As 2025 slips away, we will wonder what 2026 will bring. Hopefully, a just end to all the world’s conflicts and injustices. However, as we look to the what lies ahead, we are informed by what has happened before; joys will be mingled with sadness and perhaps regret.
Of course, 2026 will be a momentous year for Jane and me. After over 31 years here in Taunton, we will be retiring to a completely unknown area and life. Christmas Services were all the more poignant as they were the ‘last’. But all of us face new things with a mixture of fear and discomfort: change is a mixed blessing. So we look back to when things were settled to help us to cope with the new, but sometimes we cannot let the past go, and it impedes the present, let alone the future.
Now is a time, when all the glitz and outward celebrations have receded, that we can begin to consider what the birth of Jesus means: the certainty of God in our midst, that nowhere we go isn’t anywhere God has been before, accompanying us every step of the way. I recall the words of a hymn at my induction: ‘Past put behind us, for the future take us, Lord of our lives to live for Christ alone.’​