LIGHT

 MORE LIGHT

INTRODUCTION

Today is the feast of Three Kings or The Epiphany.

The title of my homily is, Light More Light

Its importance varies as a feast day depending on the culture.

For example, in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Eastern Rite Church, light, phos, is very important, so this feast is well celebrated.

Coming out of that tradition, the Ukrainians celebrate the feast of the Epiphany big time.

So too the Spanish. One of the times I was in Puerto Rico the feast of Tres Reyes occurred. What a celebration. The feast of Three Kings is big time. It’s a beautiful feast day. We had a big Puerto Rican dinner. However, the electricity was out for 3 days. We ate and lived by candle light. This made the feast of the Epiphany even more dramatic.

The light of Christ came not only to the anawim, but to all, to the Gentiles, to the people who lived in darkness. They saw a great light.

LIGHT: RICH SYMBOL

Light -- the theme of light  -- is often used by photographers, painters, and poets.

See the light!

It’s kataphatic.

And even those who are apophatic like Dionysius, talk about light.

It’s always the idea that there is light on the other side of darkness.

GOETHE

Goethe’s dying words were, “More light.”

“More light!”

What a beautiful two word prayer, “More light!”

Our prayers should be the prayer of Goethe: “More Light!’

If you are looking for a mantra for centering prayer, “More light!”

If you want a 7 syllable mantra, “I am the light of the world.”

Goethe was always reaching for more light.

OTHERS WHO TALKED ABOUT THE LIGHT

Woody Allen said, “I’m scared of the dark and suspicious of the light.”

Heinrich Ibsen in his play, Ghosts, [1881] has one of the characters say, “I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers that exists again in us, but all sorts of dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.”  (Act II)

At another time, one of the characters in Heinrich Ibsen’s play, Ghosts, says, “Mother, give me the sun.” (Act III)

Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac, has a character say in his play, Chantecler, [1907] “It is at night that faith in light is admirable.” (Act II, scene iii)

Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) in his poem, Voyage to the Moon [1976], wrote,

Now, the fourth day evening, we descend,

make fast, set foot at last upon her beaches,

stand in her silence, lift our heads and see

above her, wanderer in her sky,

a wonder to us past the reach of wonder,

a light beyond our lights, our lives the rising

earth,

          a meaning to us,

                    O, a meaning!

Elie Wiesel talks about this town which is in the dark. We are all in this town, in this town, in the dark. We are behind a wall. We are searching to get out. We are all searching for a way to get out into the light.

Kierkegaard talks about darkness and light. It’s in the darkness, in the sorrow, that things are born.

Hegel said the same thing. It’s in the eventide, in the dark, that the great things start. They are born out of the darkness.

Jesus was born in the light, in the night, in a stable. There was no room in the Inn.

BEATLES

The Beatles had a song about “Light across the waters ....” You look over the dark waters of lake or a river and you see a light on the other shore. They are a symbol. Lighthouses along the ocean coast. They are very important. As on the Amalfi coast.

People who take drugs, often tell about the lights they see.  Maybe that’s enduced by the blinking strobe lights that some druggies have flashing as they take drugs.

If Jesus is the light of the world, we can call to him in our fears and doubts and darkness. We can call to him for more light.

And if we don’t want him, we stay inside the dark.

HISTORY OF SPIRITUALITY

Light is a great theme throughout the pages of the history of spirituality.

Check an anthology of spiritual writings and see how often the metaphor of light shines forth.

And we should expect that. If the spiritual life is a journey, there is obviously going to be times when one has to travel in the dark.

And all of us know that lights on the highway help, also on streets, also in trying to read street names. We also know that trying to move around a house or go up and down stairs in a building, night lights help. Stairs and road and streets can be dangerous, very dangerous, without lights.

We all know what its like to grope in the dark, trying to find the light switch.

So in the spiritual life, light is a symbol for all of us trying to find the light.

We search for light at the end of a dark tunnel.

We need light when we are trying to find our way.

Light then  is a regular symbol in the spiritual life.

We read about the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the senses. Check out St. John of the Cross. Check out Plato’s cave.

When we are searching, we hope we will come to a door.

I am the door.

I am the gate.

I am the way.

At times in life we feel like we are in the dark, crawling along or in walking in the dark and we come to an enormous door in the dark. It’s Christ. Knock and it shall be opened. Seek and you shall find. An enormous door. Stand at the door and knock. I picture this door, an enormous big door, swinging open and in comes light.

Light.

Light on the other side of that dark door.

JOHN McCALL’S IMAGE

I remember listening on an audio tape a wonderful talk by John McCall. In it he gives a great description of conversion. It’s like being in a room that is very tiny. At first we’re satisfied. Everything is perfect. We are happy where we are.

Then we hear a sound in the corridor and we open up the door and the door slams and we are in the dark. We crawl till we come to another room, enter it and it’s bigger. There we find peace, but only for a while. Satisfaction flows into dissatisfaction. There has to be more to life than this. Then we go through the same process.

Conversion is going from room to room. That’s the conversion process. Each room has a bulb with higher watts. Each room has a bigger bed. Each room has more comfortable chairs. But there is always more. We’re always groping in the dark corridor before we get to a new door.

MERTON’S POEM ON HEMINGWAY

There was a poem by Thomas Merton in Commonweal, on September 22, 1961. It was on the death of Hemingway.

Merton pictures Hemingway climbing this big staircase with the dead, all marching towards the light. Moving towards the Father. Listen.

          AN ELEGY FOR ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Now for the first time on the night of your death

your name is mentioned in convents, ne cadas obscurum.

Now with a real bell your story becomes final. Now men

in monasteries, men of requiems, familiar with the dead

include you in their offices.

You stand anonymous among thousands, waiting in the dark

at great stations on the edge of countries known to

prayer alone, where fires are not merciless, we hope,

and not without end.

You pass briefly through our midst. Your books and

writings have not been consulted. Our prayers are

pro defuncto NOMINE.

Yet some look up, as though among a crowd of prisoners

or displaced persons, they recognize a friend once

know in a far country. For these the sun also rose

after a forgotten war upon an idiom you made great. They

have not forgotten you. In their silence you are still

famous, no ritual shade.

How slowly this bell tolls in a monastery tower for

a whole age, and for the quick death of an unready dynasty,

and for that brave illusion: the adventurous self!

For with one shot the whole hunt is ended!

MICHAEL

When my nephew Michael was in the hospital, just before he died, something beautiful happened. My brother-in-law told me this story. They went down to the hospital and little Maryna couldn’t go up to his room to see him. So my brother-in-law told him to turn on all the lights in the room and get up on the window sill and look down. They would drive around the block and look up. There he was in the light, waving. That was the last time Maryna and my brother-in-law saw him alive. What a powerful memory.

MOVIES

Doctor Zhivago was one of those movies that featured light and darkness.

Also Casablanca.

Also a hundred other films.

I remember a scene in some movie where there were kids down in this dark mine working. They were enslaved. And a hero leads them out.

Life offers a call to free others from the dark.

Come to the light.

See the Light!

BOOK: LIFE AFTER LIFE

Years ago there was a very popular book entitled, Life After Life. It tells experience after experience of people who experience light when they are very close to death. Light at the end of dark tunnel’s. Light.

This is quiet real. It’s the great archetype of light.

The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. And this

LIGHT

So that’s the heart and soul of this feast day of the epiphany. Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is the light that takes away the darkness. We are like the Magi, walking, moving, searching, for the light. Wanting to reach our destination. Following the star. Following our star. Pilgrims of light.

CONCLUSION: GOETHE’S PRAYER

So our prayer is: “More Light.”

The words of Goethe, “More Light.”

We are pilgrims like the Magi, searching for the light of the world. Following our star.

O O O O O O O

Painting on top: Epiphany by Art Enrico