Blessed Light (midweek message)

 

 

Blessed Light

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

September 25, 2019

“God is light and in God there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

“Even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you”  (Psalm 139:12).

Johann Kepler, the great astronomer and mathematician who corrected Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system by  showing that the orbits of the planets were ellipses and not circles, was a faithful Christian.  Here is a prayer he wrote: 

“O You who through the light of nature have aroused in us a longing for the light of grace, so that we may be raised in the light of Your majesty, to You I give thanks, O Creator and Lord, that You allow me to rejoice in your works.  Praise the Lord you heavenly harmonies, and you who know the revealed harmonies.  For from God, through God, and in God exists all there is, both perceptible and spiritual; that which we know, and that which we do not know, for there is still so much to learn.” 

Kepler’s reference to the “harmony of the spheres,” that is, the apparent order and beauty of the movements of celestial bodies that he helped us understand, takes light and the luminaries as signs of God’s creative presence, and pointers to grace.

Such humility and awe are found in most Christian spiritual traditions, where nature itself is seen as evidence of God at work in the universe about us.  It can be expressed in mystic and poetic terms, like in this Gaelic prayer:

“As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot in life hide the shining of Your face from me.  Yet, if I may hold your hand in the darkness, it is enough.  Since I know that, though I may stumble in my going, You do not fall.” 

We see the hand of God even the diurnal cycle of sunrise, day, sunset, night, and sunrise once again, as expressed in this simple but beautiful nighttime prayer of a Ghanaian farmer: 

“The sun has disappeared,

I have switched off the light,

And my wife and children are asleep. 

The animals of the forest are full of fear,

And so are the people on their mats.

They prefer the day with your sun to the night. 

But I still know that you moon is there,

And your eyes and also your hands. 

Thus I am not afraid. 

This day again

You led us wonderfully. 

Everyone went to their sleeping mat

Satisfied and full. 

Renew us during our sleep,

That in the morning,

We may come afresh to our daily jobs.

Be with our brothers and sisters far away in Asia

Who may be getting up now.  Amen.” 

Grace and peace,

Fr. Tony+