Religious Education Coordinator News

Continuing our recent focus on the teachings of Catherine McAuley, this week’s focus is on “Hope”.

With these words, Catherine McAuley presented a powerful image to the early Sisters of Mercy. In Catherine’s time, oil or gas lamps lit the streets and homes of Dublin, dispelling the surrounding darkness. To be “a shining lamp” in this context is to illuminate the way forward, to be a beacon of hope. Catherine was urging her sisters to recognise their ability to shine and to project a future of hope to all those whom they encountered. Catherine’s use of the image of the shining lamp may well have been sparked by Jesus’ teaching: “No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others” (Matthew 5:15-16). Jesus’ exhortation to be a source of light is, at the same time, a call to be a source of hope.

Jesus ignited hope by proclaiming “good news” through his teaching, healing and inclusion of the outsider and the poorest. His ministry offered hope that those bent over by injustice might be able to stand up straight again. In Mark 16:15, Jesus commissions his followers to “proclaim the good news to the whole creation”. We can read this commission as an invitation to offer hope to the entire Earth community.