A wonderful light leads the faithful believers

“A wonderful light leads the faithful believers from the great darkness.”

This is a time when technology creates and encourages both a false anonymity and a false obscurity. This is a time of moral listlessness and moral nothingness. There are stories of slavery, addiction, murder, and all types of mayhem. As Christians we need little events to keep our focus on God, to keep our hearts and souls leading us toward goodness, kindness, holiness. A simple remembrance or a promise kept can lead to jubilation, to joy. There is a great confusion and darkness in the world. Any simple act, any shared moment of humility and charity can produce an eruption of love, an eruption of hope, an eruption of peace in the hearts and minds and souls of the believers. There is great confusion and darkness, each Christian can use Christ as a reference point, as a touchstone, as a signpost leading to the light, leading to God. Nihilism confronts each Christian each day as pop culture and the secular world move more and more away from God, away from universal moral instruction. The secular world likes the neon and shadow lands of lacerated anticipation, amputated desire, punctured hope as anxiety, insecurity, ignorance and apathy are encouraged from the covers of magazines, on reality television shows, in the lyrics of popular songs.

The unmistakable highlights of the present day is darkness; treat your neighbor with contempt, envy, distrust, indifference.

Each Christian seeks a personal theological epiphany. Each Christian seeks social justice, role reversal. Pagan thought and pagan worship appear to have returned to modern society as wealth and celebrity and notoriety and public displays of lewdness, rudeness gather the most attention and are used to entertain and to teach the new rules, the new order of the secular world. This is a time when yielding to each new temptation is expected and encouraged, consequences are quickly forgotten.

The beauty of being Christian is the reality that each time Mass is attended, the Gospel is heard, the Eucharist shared, there is a chance that a true jolt is received in either the mind, heart, or soul; a true jolt of God’s love, God’s grace reminding each Christian of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, reminding each Christian of their obligations to God. As God’s adopted children prayer allows each Christian to communicate with God; prayer can also protect each Christian from sin and vice.

Nurturing the growth of the true genuine experience of living with the social justice teachings of Jesus Christ can produce a Messianic moment of hope as different truths, different hopes are presented. Anxiety does not have to accompany fear; obedience does not have to suggest weakness. That is the secular world, popular culture way of influencing and controlling. Remember that spiritual anxiety and spiritual obedience can lead to holy happenings, can anticipate new holy actions. Remember that the light of Jesus Christ waits to destroy the darkness around us.

This is the time for humble obedience and abundant love to do God’s will.