LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
Lindsey Mitzel
There’s this coffee shop I discovered one day after a jog and its warm nutty fragrance pulled me in. In the evening it is bathed in a glittering array emanating from a large nearby evergreen, beset in ornaments, and twinkling lights of several colors. The shop itself is beautifully decorated—and all the nearby stores with their Christmas fare, garland, bows and lights are so plentiful and marvelous it feels magical to walk down the glittering street.
Christmas trees, all lit up, and sparkling lights shimmering through the snow trigger a sense of warmth, wonder, and excitement in most of us. While beautiful at midday, at midnight the lights are so much more extraordinary. They shine brightest in the very darkest of night. Just so, Jesus, Light of the World, O Radiant Dawn, is most recognizable when all seems bleak, in our dark night, and that of the world’s. St. John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). St. Francis of Assisi is known to have said, “All the darkness of the world cannot extinguish a single candle.”
Jesus calls us to love one another—to be the light of the world. He tells us, “[Do] this because you know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12, USCCB). As we gaze at all the sparkling lights around us, think of what it would be like if there were no light at all. On the night Jesus was born, the only light Mary would’ve had to give birth by was the fire Joseph might have made, and the stars in the sky. Just as one star shone brighter than the rest, pointing the way to Jesus, Jesus shines brighter than all mankind, pointing the way to the Father. Some refer to the Saints as stars shining brightly in the sky, helping to illuminate our way. As they grew closer to Jesus on earth, they became more dazzling themselves, and can help us to do the same. Jesus invites us to, “shine [your light] before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16, USCCB). Our “lights”, of course, come from Jesus, living inside of us, a result of our baptism. In the baptismal rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the baptismal candle is lit from the Christ candle, from that year’s Easter Vigil. The candle is presented to the newly baptized and the presider states, “ . . . This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. He (she) is to walk always as a child of the light. May he (she) keep the flame of faith alive in his (her) heart. When the Lord comes, may he (she) go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom” (Source). From our infancy in the Faith, we are called to stand out and shine brightly so that all might see. The promise in receiving our light from Jesus is that it cannot be extinguished. If we are afraid our light is dimmed, spending more time with Jesus and in the Sacraments offers us the grace we need to be restored to our baptismal radiance.
Our light indeed arises from our being “clothed in Christ” in our baptisms (Source). In St. John of the Cross’s Romanaces, he writes,
In that immense love
Proceeding from the two
The Father spoke words
Of great affection to the Son,
Words of such profound delight
That no one understood them;
They were meant for the Son,
And he alone rejoiced in them.
What he heard was this:
‘My Son, only your company contents me,
And when something pleases me
I love that thing in you;
Whoever resembles you most
Satisfies me most,
And whoever is like you in nothing
Will find nothing in me. . .
My Son, I will give myself
To him who loves you
And I will love him
With the same love I have for you,
Because he has loved
You whom I love so.’ . . .
For as the Father and the Son
And he who proceeds from them
Live in one another,
So it would be with the bride;
For, taken wholly into God,
She will live the life of God”
(The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, 61-64).
In total self-denial and sacrifice, God offers us everything He has ever had—including His eternal life. He offers us Jesus’ birth, under a star, and within the warmth of his family. No matter the darkness in the world, or in your own life, the miraculous gift of the incarnation to us at Christmas is our being given God-made-man, in order that we might be one with Him, and loved by the Father as profoundly as if we were Christ Himself. The light we can give to the world is a deep knowledge and gratitude of God’s love for us as we are because we have been covered in Christ and are loved as He is for who He is. Mother Teresa said, “Often you can see power lines running alongside the street. Unless current is flowing through them, there is no light. The power line is you and I! The current is God! We have the power to allow the current to flow through us and thus to generate the light of the world: JESUS—or to refuse to be used and, thus, allow the darkness to spread” (Source).
