Anticipation is an inherent factor of our lives. We look forward to so many events, feeling that we still have some control over the future for, with the past behind us, we can do nothing about it.

 Yet, plan as we might, so often our plans go wrong. Events intervene and our expectations hit a brick wall. Benjamin Disraeli wrote that “What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.” In our own time, John Lennon wrote that memorable line ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans’

 Yet the turning of the Seasons is ever present. We are sure that after the rigours of Winter our earth will again give us Spring and Summer in the never ending cycle of change. The Summer of 1816, often called ‘the year of no summer’ after the eruption of Tambora in April 1815, must have been a disturbing event.

 With the re-establishment of the English Hierarchy in the mid 19^th Century, John Henry Newman was invited to preach to the assembled bishops at St Mary’s College, Oscott, in the Midlands Diocese of Birmingham. The date was July 13^th 1852. His sermon has become known as The Second Spring, for it was essentially about birth, about growth, about life. He wrote “How beautiful is the human heart, when it puts forth its first leaves, and opens and rejoices in its spring-tide.”

 Anticipation can also bring real disappointment. Laurie Lee writing in  his famous book ‘Cider with Rosie’  recounts a teacher telling the new children ‘you wait here for the present’  His limited knowledge of the nuance of language left him waiting all day for the present that never came, as he grumpily told his Mum when he came home for school that evening.

At about the same age, I remember when my parents took me to visit an Aunt and Uncle on Christmas Day afternoon. My Uncle told me that Father Christmas would arrive again at three o’clock. So I stood in the hall watching the hands of a large Grandfather Clock move towards the fateful hour and then beyond. Nothing happened. Maybe if I hadn’t been able to tell the time, the disappointment wouldn’t have been so great.

 Children look forward to birthdays with excitement, the marking posts of progress. “You’re a big boy now, you are seven!” Suddenly the world of grown-ups has come that bit nearer and status within the family improved.

 But go back seven years, go back to the time when a Mother going out carried her baby with her wherever she went, back to those last weeks of pregnancy when the expectation of giving birth was near. The family arrangements were about to be transformed. Names were chosen for the ever-enlarging bump and, with a loud cry of wonder on arrival, everything changed.

 But after anticipation, there is the practical need to move on, to realise the new responsibility and to cope with the stress and tiredness that comes with it.

In many ways that is where the Church is now. Francis has been both a spiritual and cultural shock to the Church. His relaxed style and ever-present smile have become an aspect of the papacy that we have come to respect.

 In small ways, significant actions have taken on huge implications. A brief visit to Lesbos to greet and reassure the refugees, that general term we use for those individuals who have names that are not known to us, resulted in six adults and six children returning to the Vatican, twelve Muslims given an unexpected chance of a better life.

 Good though that is, it is not the real essence of the story, for Francis is basically asking the question of others “What are you doing? What’s your contribution?”

 Inevitably, given his age and the strenuous life that he lives, the question is already being asked, who comes next? How much change has there been that is now irreversible? In recent days a group of fifteen people, including two bishops, prominent theologians, people working in creative areas of ministry, and Catholic writers and broadcasters, have written to Pope Francis and to the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, asking for an open discussion about the procedures of the Congregation and calling for approaches that respect human rights and the need for free speech, pluralism, transparency and accountability within the church community. Questions are being asked and honest answers expected. We can no longer treat people who seek to explore and express their Christian faith with a ‘holier than thou’ contempt. That draconian attitude has, in the past, sought to put such ‘dissidents’ in their place. Too often in previous centuries the attempt to curb discussion has only resulted in eventual vindication of those so poorly treated. Our faith is bigger and more precious than that.

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