On multiple levels, we want to leave the darkness behind and experience the light of longer and more hopeful days. Even though some of us will whine and complain about the hour of sleep we lose this weekend, with the return of Daylight Savings Time, we will again see the benefits of lengthening days and a chance to take in more light.
Let’s not dwell on that “lost hour,” but notice how our moods and our spirits change as we look out the window at 6pm and take in the light, enjoying it and delighting in it. What encouragement there is to be found in knowing that the days will grow even longer as the weeks move into spring and summer! And all of this is compounded by the good news about fewer virus cases, fewer deaths, and the gradual increase in the numbers of those being vaccinated.
Our spirits are lifted, too, when we hear in the Gospel this weekend that “Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but rather that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3,14-21) Jesus came to save – not to condemn. St. John tells us: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred the darkness to the light.” We hope we prefer the light to the darkness, but the Scripture here is posing a different option: not the darkness and light of changing seasons, but rather the desire to leave behind the shadows of selfishness and sin and to stand in the light of God’s grace and truth.
At the halfway point of this season, let’s remember that Lent is a time for honestly discerning which we really do prefer: the light or the darkness. In being more faithful to prayer in this season, we can stand in the light of God’s presence to see more clearly the truth of who we are and what we prefer. In fasting, we can give up things so that the light of truth shines on our habits and hungers, on what we rely and depend upon, and we can see more clearly in what and in whom we place our trust. In serving the poor in these 40 days, the light of grace can expose our abundance, our desire to have and have more, so that we may see more clearly how we are called to share what we have with those who have so much less.
Let’s give ourselves a couple of minutes to whine or complain about a lost hour of sleep this weekend. And then it will be time to move on: to see how much we prefer the light of spring’s longer days to the darkness of a very long winter. May the grace of this season also help us see how much we prefer the light of Christ to the darkness of our own selfishness and sin.
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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen. (St. Francis)
