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
