Monthly Prayer: April 2026

This month’s reflection comes from Father David Stewart SJ from The Church of The Sacred Heart in Edinburgh. Father David helps us reflect on our identity as ‘Easter People’ and of the hope still present in a world in turmoil.

We live in a world in turmoil; that’s obvious to all. April this year starts with Easter, the heart of what we profess as Christians. Is the hope of Easter also obvious? Its light? The late Cardinal Basil Hume OSB once said, simply, that “The great gift of Easter is hope.” It’s always possible for us to treat our religion as a means of escape from the turmoil, and the temptation is strong even to shun Easter’s light; but that’s not our Christian way.

To speak of Easter hope demands more of us than repetition of the words we use at this time; yet those words have an innate power to ensure and energise us, even in the face of havoc. Think also of the ringing words of Pope St. John Paul II – ““Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”

Our identity, therefore, is named by John Paul as Easter People – not Lenten people, not even Holy Week people. This is our deepest identity, this is what we were made for, but it’s gross presumption to think that we’ve reached that point of fulfilment; not yet! His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, gave us timely advice, noting, “to be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday … [that] seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust.” We need only look at the parts of our world where SCIAF and Caritas globally work so hard to bring the fulness of human dignity to those denied it. And because injustice is so often a root cause of conflict, as people still waiting Easter’s full and brilliant light, we are right to ask why there is the shadow of injustice; in other words, enquiring into what prevents human development in an integral way.

Easter people can and should invoke the living tradition of Catholic Social Teaching as a tool for this reflection. Solidarity is one of its core principles, recognising Increasingly how media saturation is leading to desensitisation, which fosters the spread of the “globalising of indifference” about which Pope Francis warned us. Easter people recognise that is only in caring deeply for and in solidarity with others, especially the outcast and marginalised, that we come to live our own lives to the full.

The Resurrection is the only event in all of history that does not cast a shadow. The Risen Jesus, choosing to return with consolation to his friends, does not cast any darkness either – and never will. Goodness won’t ever be fully extinguished. That which was future hope for many, became present reality for all who can accept it; and continues, as Christ will ascend beyond human time & limitation without ever leaving us. We must resist any sense that Easter is a happy ending in which a divine intervention solved the problem of the violent death of an innocent man. That would be to replace the virtue of hope with mere optimism. “Christ is Risen, risen indeed!” was the great Easter proclamation that echoed around the world after sunset and before dawn on Easter Sunday. Many people in many places accepted the Easter sacraments, in growing numbers, having generously allowed themselves to be drawn towards the light and away from shadow. It’s our hope, and God’s hope too, that this Easter proclamation be heard to the ends of the earth and that’s how we launched the Easter Season at the Great Vigil, acknowledging the Risen Christ as the “Alpha and the Omega”, the beginning and the end, for all things belong to him.

That proclamation, of the triumph of new light over dark, new life over death, touches us deeply for, in the best part of ourselves, we know that we long for that light, that life.