Roll away the stone: Pope Francis’ words of hope
- Katie Wilson
- Jun 25
- 4 min read
In my journey through the Christian life, certain spiritual mentors have guided and shaped me in profound ways. In college, it was St. John Paul II whose rich writings I studied under the gentle wisdom of a small but mighty gray-haired priest with an effusive smile. My faith was deepened in a way it never had been, and Pope John Paul II's death marked one of those days when you remember exactly where you were when you heard the news. After college it was Henri Nouwen whose tender heart helped me know more deeply my own. In a period of much uncertainty, his writings helped anchor me firmly in my identity as a beloved daughter of God. Through dating, engagement and eventually marriage, it was St. Gianna and her letters to her husband Pietro that gave me a clear vision for my hopes for family life and our future.
Through the painful years of infertility, it was the tenderness and compassion of Pope Francis whose words helped heal my aching, weary heart by filling it with hope and mercy. My husband and I were in the throes of infertility and a long difficult adoption process when the pandemic started. The loneliness, longing and fear of the future worsened with time alone in an empty house. A lot was stirring in my heart that particular Triduum as I contemplated suffering and the cross, both the Lord’s and my own. When Easter morning came, my heart had experienced a deep inner conversion. I awoke early to pray and was deeply moved by the words of Pope Francis’ homily from the Easter Vigil the night before.
Five years later, in this recent unique Easter season, we celebrated the new life Christ won for us, remembered and celebrated the life and legacy of Pope Francis, and rejoiced at the election of Pope Leo XIV. I hope that today, Pope Francis’ words, spoken during that pandemic Easter, move your heart to hope and transformation as they did mine.
In his homily, Pope Francis spoke of “the great silence of Holy Saturday” and the “drama of suffering” that “weigh on [the] hearts” of the women who went to the tomb to weep at dawn that Easter morning. This was precisely where I had felt trapped for so long and I imagined myself as one of these women. Infertility, despite my best efforts to not let it, had crushed my heart, and its weight was becoming more and more difficult to carry. There was the disappointment each month and with each “no” in the adoption process, but worse than that was the pain of feeling forgotten and abandoned by God. His apparent silence broke my heart time and again.
What Pope Francis highlighted about these women was exactly what my weary heart needed to hear: “They did not give in to the gloom of sorrow or regret, they did not morosely close in on themselves, or flee from reality.” This act of courage to not give in, to go to the tomb despite their fear and pain, saves them because there “they meet Jesus, the giver of all hope.” We learn from these women, as Pope Francis notes, that while we cannot muster or will hope - for “it is a gift from Heaven” - we can open our hearts to receive it. The women “by prayer and love were helping to make that hope flower,” just as we can.
I felt paralyzed, unable to do anything that would change my circumstances, but what I could continue to do, I realized as I read Pope Francis’ words that morning, was to pray and to love: love my husband, love my family, love the Lord. And in this courageous act of prayer and love in the face of fear and suffering, our hearts, not necessarily our circumstances, are what is transformed because we meet the risen Lord. The risen Lord who, as Pope Francis writes, “rose for us to bring life where there was death, to begin a new story in the very place where a stone had been placed. He, who rolled away the stone that sealed the entrance of the tomb, can also remove the stones in our hearts. So let us not give in to resignation; let us not place a stone before hope.”
The journey to motherhood when carrying the cross of infertility is filled with fear and worry and pain, but Pope Francis challenges us with compassion and reminds us with gentleness to “open [our] hearts(s) in prayer and roll away, however slightly, that stone placed at the entrance to your heart so that Jesus’ light can enter. You only need to ask him: “Jesus, come to me amid my fears and tell me too: Courage!”
I am praying for all of us for the grace to ask just this and for the patience and trust to await the glory he has prepared uniquely for us!
