‘More than anything in my experience, hope is what beats in the heart of all people, particularly in the heart of the Irish. Every action is about hope, it can make things better.” ~President Joe Biden speaking in Dundalk during the week

There is a story about a boy who sat on the steps of a building with a battered hat by his feet. A cardboard sign read: “I’m blind please help”. The hat held a few small coins. A man was walking by. He dropped a euro into the hat, picked up the sign, turned it around, wrote something on it and put it back where he had found it. Soon the hat began to fill up with coins and notes.

That afternoon the same man was passing by again and came over to check how the boy was doing. “What did you write on my sign this morning,” asked the boy. The man said he wrote much the same except that he used different words. This is what he had written: “You are enjoying a beautiful day, but I cannot see it.”

Both signs had told the people that the boy was blind. One shared the facts, the other shared a personal experience. The personal experience touched people and was the reason why the boy’s hat had been filled with lots of coins.

The message of Easter has to also be a personal experience. On its own it is factual that doesn’t touch us much. But when we personalise it, the Easter story becomes alive. It is a story filled with hope, it is about celebrating new beginnings, it is embracing opportunity, it is about believing in love, kindness and goodness. It is as President Joe Biden puts it about recognising the hope that beats in the heart of everyone. Take away this hope and we have nothing.

The Easter journey and celebration lasts for six weeks. This is not random but a reminder of giving enough time to feel this hope, to see this hope and to be this hope to each other.