We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Back in Lourdes.

This time, we’re back with the fantastic group from the Dublin Dioceses. This time, the Accueil is open.

Many of Pádraig’s old friends are back too.

Whatever I think of the town and its pretty tacky shops, the commercialisation of organised religion, there is an atmosphere of calm and spirituality, it’s out of this world, and there is an attitude towards people who need our help that would be very difficult to find anywhere else. There are dozens of helpers who took their holidays and paid for their trip over to give a week to others. Some of them have been coming for decades.

It’s exceptional in so many different ways.

Hope is being mentioned every day. For whatever reason, I always felt ‘hope’ was something passive: you sat down and ‘hoped’ for the best.

Paul’s letter to his friends in Rome made me think again. He wrote, some time ago, that people who do not give up are helped. And that as we are getting this help when we not give up, we should be tolerant with each other and be united in mind and voice. Treat each other in a friendly way. That way, we’d live with joy and peace, and all boundaries of hope are be removed.

So, hope is anything else but passively sitting down and ‘hope’ for the best. It’s about not giving up. It’s about finding not just strength, but joy and peace. Fun.

Last Tuesday, Pádraig and the An Saol Foundation Centre were in the news again, when the Irish language news team interviewed Maria in relation to the recent Ombudsman report “Nowhere to go”.

It seems that not much has changed since we were asked in a Dublin hospital, just a few weeks after Pádraig’s accident ten years ago. which nursing home Pádraig was going to go to.

Our answer was clear. Although, then, we didn’t have much more to go on than our hope.

As it turned out, Paul in his letter was right: We were helped because we did not give up.

We didn’t loose hope.

Maybe because it was dark enough so that we could see the stars.