In the shrine at Baclaran, the second most popular place after the shrine is the candle chapel. There, thousands of people light candles and pray silently and solemnly. Many stay still lengthily transfixed at the candles as if contemplating their lives in bright light after coming out of the darkness of their lives.
In our lives, we crave for light because living in darkness is one of the deepest existential irony of our lives. There is light because there is darkness. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed,
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” – Isaiah 9: 2
Existential darkness affects the lives of both sinners and saints. A concrete example is the story of Mother Theresa. In spite of the perceived holiness of Mother Teresa, many are not aware that she battled dryness, darkness, loneliness and torture and even, to some extent, doubt about the existence of heaven and of God. This story is narrated in the book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta. The book contains the correspondence in the last fifty years of Mother Theresa wherein she laments the pain and struggle of an absent God. She writes,
“As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak.”[1]
Yet, despite the “dark night of the soul” and seeming absence of God, Mother Teresa continued to give her life in service and held on to her faith in an unfathomable God.
Today’s readings articulates the existential irony of living in darkness and the deepest longing of coming out into the light. The First Reading from second Chronicles (2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23) describes the darkness of the people of Israel of their own doing. Despite being the chosen people of God, Israel “added infidelity to infidelity,” worshipping false gods, polluting the sacred temple, and vigorously ignoring the real God.
The Responsorial Psalm from Psalm 137 offers a very poignant description of Israel’s living in darkness. Captives in a foreign land, they weep and refuse to sing the songs of Judah because they are exiled from everything they held dear. Everything had been taken from them because of their infidelity. Indeed, light had gone out of their lives.
In the gospel, Nicodemus a Pharisee, a man of high rank and a respectable member of the Sanhedrin came to Jesus at night (John 3: 1 – 2). In the gospel of John, light plays a prominent symbol. Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus at night implies the context of darkness when Nicodemus came to Jesus. Nicodemus’ darkness stems from his fear that his colleagues would see him with Jesus. At the same time, triggered by the teachings of Jesus, Nicodemus was struggling within himself questioning the faith and tradition he grew into.
Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus at night also symbolizes the beginning stage of Nicodemus’ spiritual growth. He started in the gospel in darkness. But in the middle of the gospel, Nicodemus is slowly seeing the light. He defends Jesus, for example, and reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person be heard before being judged (John 7:50–51). Finally, Nicodemus at the end of the gospel becomes a disciple of Jesus by his appearance after the Crucifixion of Jesus assisting Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body of Jesus for burial (John 19:39–42).
John’s gospel contains the most quoted text from the New Testament:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life (John 3: 16).
It’s nice to hear about the unconditional love of God for us. But so often people stopped there and missed the succeeding text where John describes God’s coming into the world as light. In coming as light, God has no desire to condemn. It is we who condemn ourselves by walling God out!
[T]he light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light
and does not come toward the light,
so that his works might not be exposed (John 3: 19 – 20).
This is a beautiful articulation of the irony of sin in our lives. Light is clearly a good thing. But through sin, we prefer to live in, even love, darkness. Sin makes us afraid and ashamed of the light. To accept the unconditional love of God we need to come to live in the light of God.
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light,
so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God (John 3: 21).
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, in the early Church, Lent was a period of purification and enlightenment. This is most obvious in the early Church’s making Lent as the appropriate season for preparation for candidates of baptism, the catechumens. Thus, baptism in the early church was also called enlightenment or illumination. Baptism is the sacrament of receiving the light of Christ. During the rite of Baptism, a candle for each catechumen or child is lit by Godparents from the Paschal candle as the priest says, “Receive the light of Christ.” In infant baptism, parents and godparents are instructed to keep the light burning brightly and the flame of faith alive in their child’s heart.
“These children have been enlightened by Christ.
They are to walk always as children of the Light.”
Our baptism gave us our deepest identity as children of the light. We are children of Eastern morn. As baptized, we need always to come and live in the light. In Lent, we are called to renew our baptism in order that we can continue to partake of the light of Christ in illuminating the darkness that envelops so much of our world today.
As we continue with our journey in Lent, let us more intensely confront the dark areas of our lives. Let us continue our struggle to come out of the light. Like Mother Theresa, let us call to God and pray, “Take us out of the dark, oh Lord! Come, be my light! ”
[1] Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light – The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 288.
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