This time of year, we gather in the holy light of one another. We light our candles and listen to the words and music. We look at each other and we look out on the world beyond us, and we wonder what it all means. Christmas is, perhaps above all else, about light. …
Tag: light
Here we are once again on the first Sunday of Advent, once again just weeks away from the celebration of the great solemnity of Christmas. Here we are once again entering into a period of preparation for the graces to be received as we contemplate what it means to have a God who is willing to come be on our level, to be Emmanuel and be with us. We are no longer in ordinary time, and it’s clear in today’s …
We may be re-energized by a brisk walk or a exhilarated by a bike ride, but we also require the quiet introspection that comes from solitude, reflection or prayer, from placing ourselves before the world like an open lens and allowing ourselves to be imprinted by it all, like photographic plates or film, by what the world is showing us. …
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. And that voice…that voice. What was it about that voice? Such authority and kindness. Eternal, somehow, as if it had always been here. I almost laughed but didn’t. What did he think I wanted? “I want to see.” …
The announcement, the call to her in the midst of sleep, is the very beginning of the story, the pinhole of opportunity, the invitation to grace the way opening to way. …
Clarity comes with our awareness, with unplugging and paying attention, with allowing God to “show up” in our lives and speak. …
Night — especially a dark and quiet night out in the country — often gives focus to my prayer and pulls my thoughts to God more intensely because the dark and the silence block out the noise and light of the world. …
It’s appropriate to gasp in exhileration when the world explodes in beauty before you. It’s right and just to fall on your knees and acknowledge that the Creator of everything likes to show off a little every night and paint the sky for our enjoyment. …
Light, in its many forms, uses and meanings, is perhaps God’s ultimate gift. Without it, we would literally and figuratively be in the dark, our lives only shadows and figures in fog. …