carrying the Christ-light
On Sunday, December 13, we held the first event of the season, and the last event of the calendar year, entitled, Carry Your Light to the World. During a short Advent meditation, we participated in a liturgy on the theme of light. Here are some excerpts:
In the beginning, Lord
I was alone
Like the earth
before your Spirit moved over the waters.
I was formless and empty
and darkness filled the depths of my heart.
Then, it was as if you declared
‘Let there be Light’
and out of the darkness
I began to see hope
like a shimmering ray of love
breaking through the parting clouds
at the conclusion of the night.
In the beginning, Lord I was alone
but when I saw you in the light I was no longer afraid.
You held out your hand
and though I had a choice
I had no choice
because to refuse
was to embrace again the darkness.
In the beginning, Lord I was alone
now I am again a part
of your creation
loved, wanted, needed, family.
In the light of your presence
I hold out my heart that others
might glimpse through it your reflection
and be drawn from the darkness that I once embraced
into the light of your sunrise
the brightness of your face
Lord, thou hast given us thy Word for a light to shine upon our path;
grant us so to meditate on that Word, and to follow its teaching,
that we may find in it the light that shines more and more until the perfect day; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Jerome, c 342 - 420)
The gospel of John says “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” As the small, broken people that we are, this lesson may be one to which we can cling more fiercely in the winter than in the summer. These words make even more sense to us on the darkest day of the year, only three days before Christmas, than they would mid-summer. We must remember our Hope during the cold and the dark of our lives, just as we must remember during the cold and the dark of the winter.
As we celebrate this season, as we mark yet again the coming of Jesus Christ into our world, the Light of Men, the Salvation of our Souls, we must remember as well that just as we illuminate our homes and our city with strings of lights, with candles and with shining stars – recalling that star in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago – we must bear the Christ-light we carry inside us to the darkness in the world around us. We must share His light, not only in the darkest days of December, but the darkest days of our lives.
Merry Christmas!
