A lot to reflect on in this passage by Maria Boulding. Hope you can make the time to read it slowly . . . and to find hope for yourselves and others in it:
There is a discontent in us that can be partly stifled by material satisfactions, but some experiences tend to awaken it. It may be roused by beauty, or by love, by great pain or by the nearness of death. It can surface easily in times of silence when we try to confront the mystery of ourselves and wonder about God.
If you have ever known this discontent and pondered the mysteries and contradictions of the human condition, it is of consequence to both yourself and others that you hope, expect and listen in silence to the word of God who is himself attuning you to hear. Your silent listening through prayer, through people and through events will be very personal; it may seem very solitary, but it is not. You are the answering readiness, the receptivity, without which even today God cannot give as he longs to give. Our noisy, busy world has little time to listen and wait; and–what is worse–it is starved of hope. So many hopes disappoint, and people are afraid of being disappointed yet again. It is when we reach the brink of despair that hope grounded in God has a chance, because there is nothing else left. The modern world can surely not be far from the brink.
Witnesses to Hope 