Light in darkness and Catholic schools
Homily for the Feast of the Presentation, 2024, during Catholic Schools Week
Note: This is the first homily I preached at the Catholic school where I teach theology.
Close to a dozen years ago, the first of our seven children went to college—Christendom College in Virginia, small Catholic liberal-arts college, good rugby team—and during a family visit we went to Shenandoah Caverns. It’s a mile-long guided tour going nearly 350 feet underground, and at one point in the tour they turn off all the lights so visitors can experience something that the tour guide pointed out is rare today: absolute darkness. How rare, even he didn’t fully appreciate, because when all the lights in the chamber actually went out, the moment was ruined by our five-year-old son’s flashing light-up sneakers!
I think that moment, those sneakers flashing out in the darkness of the cavern, highlights a disconnect between the world of our experience and the world that Luke is writing about in the Gospel for this feast day, the Presentation of the Lord.
We’re now exactly 40 days out from Christmas, in keeping with the precept of the Law of Moses that brought the Holy Family 40 days after Jesus’ birth to the Temple. To most people in the Temple that day, of course, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus would have been just one more anonymous family of pilgrims—but two people saw something more, aided by the Holy Spirit: an old man and an old woman, Simeon and Anna. Unfortunately nothing is remembered of what Anna said, but Luke preserves a memory of Simeon’s words. Taking the baby Jesus in his arms, Simeon calls him both the glory of God’s people Israel and “a light for revelation to the Gentiles”—that is, to non-Jews, non-Israelites. For God’s people, the Israelites, Jesus is the glory of their nation; for everyone else, for the Gentiles, for all of us, he’s a light for revelation, God speaking to the world.
A light for revelation to the Gentiles. We find a similar idea in early in Matthew’s Gospel: Jesus visits a Gentile region of Galilee, and Matthew quotes Isaiah’s words “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” The prologue of John’s Gospel likewise calls Jesus “the light shining in the darkness” and the “true light that enlightens everyone.” Jesus himself, later in John’s Gospel, says, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Notice in all these verses the contrast of light and darkness. This is where that disconnect comes in: I think we have to recognize that we lose something of the power of the idea of Jesus as God’s light for all people in our world today simply because in our world light sources of all kinds are so ubiquitous that our experience of real darkness is atrophied. In fact, today we have to worry about too much light: light pollution; nuisance lighting; too much light can even be a health hazard! It can interfere with sleep and lead to increased risks of all kinds of physical and psychological conditions. The irony is that there’s plenty of darkness in our world metaphorically speaking, but the power of the language of light and darkness is weakened.
So, listening to today’s Gospel, as is so often the case, we need to make a conscious effort to take ourselves imaginatively out of our world and place ourselves in Luke’s world. A world, obviously, with no screens, no electronics, no electric lights, no flashlights, definitely no light-up sneakers! The Romans had candles; Jews were more likely to use oil lamps; neither was cheap, and you wouldn’t have a lot of them. Fire, of course, also not cheap; Israel was never a heavily forested land. The bottom line is that when the Sun went down, it got dark—and light in darkness was far more precious than we easily imagine or appreciate.
Jesus is God’s precious light for all people. A precious light for revelation. Our whole faith is based on the belief that God has spoken to us, revealed himself to humanity, above all through his Son Jesus. This is the foundation of our faith. It’s also foundational to our mission, our identity as a Catholic school. For any Catholic school—a point worth highlighting during Catholic Schools Week! A Catholic school is called to be light in the darkness.
Why are we here? Is our Catholic identity important? It’s important only to the extent that the light of Christ actually shines here: in every classroom, in every class; in the hallways between classes; on the field in every game and even in every practice; in the heart of every believing faculty member or school employee and every believing student. Without that, however well we’re doing academically, fundamentally we would be failing.
This mission belongs to every believer here, whether we’re students or teachers, lay people or clergy. You know, one time in John’s Gospel when Jesus talks about being the light of the world, he qualifies it: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Of course Jesus is always with us in an important sense, but when he says As long as I am in the world, obviously he’s thinking about leaving the world! So where is the light of the world now? You know what Jesus says is the light of the world in his Sermon on the Mount? His followers. He literally says, “You are the light of the world.” We are called to be the light of the world, which is to say, we’re called to be Jesus. Every one of us.
How can we begin to do that better? I’m going to close with just one suggestion drawing on the silent example of Anna in Luke’s Gospel. Luke says that she worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. This year in particular, 2024, Pope Francis has designated a Year of Prayer in anticipation of next year, 2025, which is a Holy Year or Jubilee Year celebrating 2025 years approximately since Jesus’ birth. So prayer is always important, but even more than usual in this Year of Prayer. Prayer is part of our culture here: prayer before every class. What if each of us committed to take that moment to heart every day, in every class? To not just passively let that moment go by, but actively lift our hearts and minds to our Lord, asking him to fill us with his light for that class? And then letting that intention guide us for that class?
Don’t be discouraged if you forget or aren’t paying attention. Just renew your intention, ask the Lord for his help, and do it next time. The more consistently each of us does this, the more the light of Christ will shine in us and in our school. Christ our light, shine on us! Amen.