MESSAGE OF HOPE IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE

BY A STAFF REPORTER
THE GOOD FRIDAY experience of confusion, resentment and alienation is a part of human life, said the Catholic author 28-year-old Mrs. Bernadine Bishop at the Trafalgar Square unity service last week. Just as Christ's disciples thought he had abandoned them and let them down on that first Good Friday, Christians now undergo "hours, days, or perhaps years even, when all hope is extinguished, when there is nothing left to live for." Mrs. Bishop told a crowd of more than 3,000. "Our personal Good Fridays take the shape of great losses of all kinds—physical illness, loss of faith in what we have lived for, failure in work, loneliness, the perplexities of mental illness." The serVice, organised by the Diocese of London Council for Mission in association with the Westminster Christian Council, was attended by Bishop Casey, Auxiliary of Westminster, deputising for Cardinal Heenan, who was ill; the Rev. Edward Rogers, Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council; and Dr. Robert Stopford, Anglican Bishop of London.
Mrs. Bernadine Bishop
The Cardinal, who was recovering from an influenza attack, was advised by doctors not to attend the openair service.
The Good Friday state of
despair, continued Mrs. Bishop, which attacked everyone at times, was the same as that which sent some people to drink or drugs or suicide. Yet, she said, the coming of Easter guaranteed "not merely that while there's life there's hope, but that there is hope even when there appears not to be She concluded: "As sure as Easter Sunday follows Good Friday in the calendar, life and hope can somehow triumph over death and despair."