31 December 2025
The Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Chelmsford, has shared her New Year message for 2026:
It was a joy to meet Pope Leo in Rome in November of last year. The occasion was the declaration of Cardinal Newman as a Doctor of The Church, made all the more meaningful in the Jubilee Year, themed “Pilgrims of Hope”. It seems to me that as we stand on the threshold of a New Year, we are called to travel this path of Hope together.
It’s always a temptation to be drawn towards despair. A febrile political environment, the diminished standing of the Church, even our own weariness can lead us to forget that we are called to be people of Hope. Those whose Hope is in the Word made Flesh - the message that’s been proclaimed in churches throughout our Diocese this Christmas period and because of which we can journey confidently into a new year.
And Hope abounds not just when all is well, not just in life’s joys and successes. In his November message for World Day of the Poor, the Pope urges us to recognise those experiencing poverty as "witnesses to a strong and steadfast hope, precisely because they embody it in the midst of uncertainty, poverty, instability and marginalisation". That is not how a secular society usually measures Hope. Christian Hope has nothing to do with whether a successful outcome can be predicted but everything to do with the conviction of things not seen and the determination to travel well in times of uncertainty, for our Hope is in the one who renews all things.
In my Persian childhood we celebrated New Year on 21st March - a time of new life bursting forth at the Spring Equinox. Joyful though that remembrance is, I’ve also come to see the blessing of the western tradition - of the New Year coming at a time of darkness and even a certain bleakness. Every morning in the small chapel at Bishopscourt I see the words of St. John engraved on the stain glass window: Light Shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Now that is Hope, and that is what I wish for you, your loved ones and your communities. May you have a happy and Hope-filled 2026.
+Guli Chelmsford