A few years ago, someone had the idea of nominating the bicycle for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reasoning was simple: it is a democratic vehicle, produces no pollution, causes no wars, and builds up people and communities. A prize cannot go to an object, so the organizers nominated the Afghan women's cycling federation to represent it instead. (We've lost touch with their recent news, sadly.) The idea wasn't far-fetched at all. It pointed to something essential that the bicycle speaks and transmits: freedom. This quality runs so deep in the bicycle itself that ingenious modifications have been developed to make it accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities.
We saw this firsthand when members of the L'Arche community of Bologna, L'Arcobaleno, arrived in Rome after their journey. Their achievement—which you'll read about in our Focus—inspired us to explore the real possibilities and the profound joy that a bicycle or tandem can offer truly to everyone. Seeing the world through bicycle wheels (even those on a Barbie model wheelchair, as you'll discover) can actually transform that world.
Small things in the dark seas surrounding us these days? Without question. Years ago, Mariangela Bertolini wrote in Insieme (republished in our Archive, a treasury of past content always full of inspiration) about how hope—so vital to our lives, and chosen by Pope Francis as the theme for the 2025 Jubilee—is a flame that, for all its smallness, has the power to scatter darkness. Especially the darkness each of us carries within.
And it makes possible trust, communion, peace, walking—and why not, pedaling!—together. That is our wish for you, dear readers: may you welcome and let shine small, powerful sparks of hope this Christmas, remembering that Hope which, two thousand years ago and every day since, became and becomes a Child for us.