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"IO SONO" RECITAL ECUMENICO
Chiesa del SS. Salvatore, January 22 AD 2012

Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world.” [Jn 8:12]

With Jesus Christ there is no ambivalence – he is not sometimes dependable and sometimes not, or sometimes light and sometimes darkness. As John says in one of his letters, This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. [1 Jn 1:5]

Christ is the Light of the world. In Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon, this Light is described as Lady Wisdom: Wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things…She is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with [that] light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by night, but against Wisdom evil does not prevail. [Wisd. 7:24, 29, 30]

St. John, at the beginning of his Gospel, says that Jesus is that true light which lightens every person that comes into the world. [1:9] Just as we cannot see the earth unless the sun sheds its light upon it– so Christ is that Illumination by which we see inwardly, as our souls are purified, the whole landscape of intelligible and eternal truth. Jesus is that one spoken of by the Psalmist – In thy Light shall we see light. [36:9] Jesus says, I came into the world that those who do not see may see. [Jn 9:39] He is the Dayspring from on High who rises in our hearts to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death [Lk 1:78-79].

Jesus shines the Lamp of His Spirit within us – both revealing what must be amended and making us able to see ourselves and the God into whose image we are being restored. He assures us that despite all our perplexities and confusions and perversities, the darkness can never overcome that light. [Jn 1:5] When we behold Jesus Christ, we are lightened, and faith turns to understanding.

Jesus says, I am the light of the world. But then he says something astonishing, in the Sermon on the Mount, to those who through faith and baptism join themselves to Him: He says, You are the light of the world.

In Him, we are to bring to light the hidden things of darkness in our souls and in our world that they may vanish, [Eph 5:13] and we are to be mirrors, reflecting ever more perfectly that true Light. In Him, we become icons of Christ reflecting His glory to the world and attracting others to seek out this most kindly Light.

Grant us thy light, O Lord, that the darkness of our minds and hearts being done away, we may come at length to that perfect Light, even Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.        DGP

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