LIGHT IN DARKNESS

There was a time in my life when electricity came for only 12 hours a day, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The small town’s generator produced just enough current to allow every home two or three 25-watt bulbs each. The bulbs flickered; the current dipped and surged intermittently, but we sure appreciated and valued the light that was available.

I don’t know how many of you have ever experienced pitch darkness in your lives. I don’t know if you ever got to experience hiking up a mountain in total darkness, like I did many years ago. On such occasions, any light, even that of a firefly, is very much appreciated.

But darkness, of course, does not only refer to physical darkness. There is so much darkness in the world even in these times of nuclear-fueled power generators —the darkness of ignorance, for one. But there, too, is the darkness of faithlessness, the darkness in a godless world, where people don’t know any better because there are not enough evangelizers to preach to them. I know that most of the Sabbath readers are evangelized enough. But I also know that we who have the time, money and leisure to read reflections like this are called to do much more — to become “light to the Gentiles” and “instruments of salvation.”

Beyond our neighborhood, beyond our cuddly and warm communities of faith, there lie innumerable pockets of unbelief and indifference. But there, too, are people in honest search, asking like Philip did, “Master, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

For many the light of faith planted in infancy now flickers and even falters, smothered by the blitzkrieg of consumerism, hedonism and postmodernism. In such a situation filled with the darkness of individualism and indifference, the Church, the prime evangelizer, needs all the help she can get. She needs you to become “light to the Gentiles” and “instrument of salvation.”Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

 

Reflection Question:

Look around you. Are there people who need God’s light? Share the candle of your faith to them.

 

Father, let my faith be a shining light for those in darkness.

 

St. Valens, pray for us.