LIGHT AND DARKNESS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Light and Darkness.”
Basic stuff: light and darkness.
That’s the theme that hit me - when I read the readings, you
the class of 2013, picked for this your Graduation Mass - especially the gospel text you chose for this Mass: Matthew 5: 14-16
“You are the light of the world.
A city built on a hill
cannot be hidden.
No one lights a lamp and then puts
it under a measuring cup.
They set it on the lamp stand
where it gives light
to everyone in the house.
In the same way
your light must shine before all,
so that, seeing
the good things you do,
they will give praise
to our heavenly Father.”
“Light and Darkness?”
We’ve all seen t-shirts and maybe even a tattoo or two with ying
and yang on it. In the middle of the white light sliver side of the ying yang circle, there is a belly
button circle of darkness and in the stark dark sliver of the other side
of the ying yang circle there is a white button of brightness in the middle of
the darkness.
There’s a message there in that ying yang circle.
There’s a message there in all the circles and wheels of our
life - in the joy rides - as well as when life is a flat tire.
Life: there is always something else. There’s always the
twist and the turn - as the circle spins. When things look bright, the dark button
sounds its warning signals - if we listen. When things look dark, look for the
light - of hope. There’s always the
light of dawn after the dark of night - and the proverbial light at the end of
the tunnel.
To see the light, we need the dark - we need contrast - otherwise we'd be blinded by too much light. But to see the dark, we
don’t need the light. You see: there is always a twist. There’s always a
surprise. There’s always a sunrise. There’s always a sunset. Expect them. There’s
always the expected as well as the unexpected
difference. Expect them.
Light and darkness. Expect them.
Grace and sin. Expect them.
Opportunity and temptation. Expect them.
Mistakes - as I’ve heard Mr. Matt Hogan tell you and your
parents several times. Expect mistakes. Be honest about them. Learn from them. Get
moving again from them.
And that goes for life - not just your life here at St.
Mary’s.
THE GARDEN
STATE PARKWAY AND 27,000 FEET IN THE SKY
When driving at night, there is a curve on the Garden State Parkway
in New Jersey
- somewhere above Exit 105 - when you come up a slight hill and around an easy
curve - and you start to see the light -
lots of light. There is a town sitting
there. There’s people sleeping there - with some lights still on.
When walking at night through Palestine, Jesus came around a bend - or a
curve - and there in the distance - he saw lights - the lots of lights of a town or a city.
And Jesus said to his disciples that night or after sunrise
the next day the words we heard in today’s gospel, “You are the light of the world. A city built
on a mountain cannot be hidden.”
When flying at night in a plane some 27,000 feet or so above
the earth - if you have a window seat - you can look out and down into the
darkness and spot a sort of circle of city with its lights because of the darkness.
THE NEXT 50 TO 60 YEARS
When looking to your future, graduates, the road ahead has ups and downs, curves and twists and turns and you can only
see so far ahead. I’m hearing you have your colleges picked out: Anne Arundel
Community College, Gettysburg,
Wheeling, Pepperdine,
South Carolina, High Point,
Fordham, Steubenville, Penn
State, Boston College,
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Those are lights in the darkness called the future - that
you already see. You’ve visited those universities and you liked what you saw.
Those are slivers of the known, but who knows - who really knows - what’s around that next curve, and the curve after
that curve, over that next hill and over that next hill after that. Expect
surprises. Expect the unknown. Expect the opposite in the circle of what you’re
expecting. Expect the ying in the yang and yang in the ying.
Life is the unexpected. Otherwise: boring,
boring, boring.
50 to 60 years from now you’ll be sitting on a porch on a
summer night - and you’ll spot the lights of tiny planes high, high up there in the
night sky and like the passenger 27,000 feet in the sky - in the window seat - you’ll
see the bright lights of your life - from a distance - in the dark.
You’ll also see the times the lights went out - and all went
wrong - and you were plunged into the mystery of life - into the ying and the
yang of life - and by then you should have the hang of life - well at least a tiny bit more
figured out than what you have figured out by
today - May 23, 2013 - as you graduate from this school - because you were in circles of lights and
darkness - from time to time.
Life. Light and darkness.
Jesus saw on the road - that his road would graduate. It
would gradually head towards Jerusalem
- a city on a hill - and he would confront darkness and evil - even more -
big time - and he would lose - that day
- some Bad Friday in the distance. The darkness would crush him on the cross on
Calvary - but he trusted that the darkness would not win in the long run - that
those who got that message - the message that’s what we all are called to do in life -
to confront darkness and be the light - and turn Bad Fridays - Bad Days - to
Good Fridays - to Good Days - because we are here.
Jesus knew darkness. Jesus knew light. Jesus knew people.
Jesus knew life.
Jesus spoke about being the Light of the World. Jesus called
his disciples to be the Light of the world.
That’s the plan of St. Mary’s - that you would go forth from
here and bring light to our world - to bring the lights that you have - that will
overcome the darkness.
The plan is that you will leave St. Mary’s and bring you - a
better you - to other schools - to other cities and countries - that you will
improve media, meetings, marriages, messes - our world - that needs your light.
The plan is that you will not self destruct - that you won’t
have to rip up or throw away your wedding photos - or delete the scenes of your
life from your cell phones that show wrong moves and wrong relationships - but you live in the light and bring Christ’s light
into our world.
That’s the plan - that Jeremiah - spoke about in the first
reading we heard today read by Brad
Beard. [Cf. Jeremiah 29: 11-14]
When young we think that plan by God is carved in cement or
in a Bible or some book somewhere - out there - and it's up to us to find it.
When middle aged - we laugh - because we will have discovered that life is not
a plan of what we’re supposed to do with our life - and who we’re going to
marry - what’s going to happen in those marriages - and that God is the author
of our autobiography. Hopefully, we will see the light. We will know we are the
author of our life. Hopefully, we’ll also know the Lord is with us. Hopefully
we will have learned and experienced what Saint
Paul said in his letter to the Philippians [Cf. 4:13-19] which
Meghan Norwood read for us today:
“I have the strength for
everything
through him who empowers me.”
That’s the plan.
CONCLUSION
Graduates - and here comes the graduation day stuff.
Some days will be bright. Some days will be dark. Some days
will be sunny. Some days will be funny. Some days will be sad. Some days will be rain or storm - but we hope
not all day - not till the graduation or the picnic or the game or one’s life
is over.
Some days we will need to be challenged.
Some days we
will have to speak up - challenge our family - our church - our world - ourselves. That
means sometimes we’ll have to be the whistle
blower. Some days we’ll have to shine our light into the darkness of a job situation
when selfishness and evil is running the show.
Some days we’ll step back. We’ll walk alone on some early
morning beach - at Ocean City or Hawaii - and we’ll realize that the morning sunlight
- is always there. We just have to be there to see it rising. We will have
learned how life is learning how to start again over and over again. And on
that beach, hopefully we’ll meet Jesus
and have the humility to admit that too often we were fishing in the wrong
places and we’ll hear him tell us where to cast our nets in the right places
and our nets will be filled to breaking point.
God’s plan is that we experience abundance - not of stuff -
but of love and joy and giving. God’s plan is that God is with us as we love and serve -
as we give without counting the cost - that we give our life for our family and
for a better world - that our life is a life of light and we take away some of
the darkness each day.
Light and darkness,
Ying and Yang,
Yackety Yack,
Give it all back.
That’s the plan.
