A Great Light
January 22, 2023: A reflection for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Matthew 4:12-23
The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light. (Mt 4:13)
As the days incrementally become longer and the night of winter learns to yield once more to light, we can feel nature, including ourselves, stirring in our depths to bring to life the fruit of light: life.
Nature seems to stir ever so slightly to these days of lengthening sunlight and begin to open its eyes in response. Soon the sap will begin to rise in the trees and buds will begin their gentle unfurling and journey into photosynthesis.
It is a precious and deep season of waiting on God and responding from the depths. To unfurl into the light.
Today’s Gospel heralds the beginning of Jesus’ own call. It is time for him who is the light of the world, to call the men whom he chose to follow him.
It is an invitation to walk in the spiritual light emanating from the depths of Jesus and taking visible form in his unselfish, self-giving love and mercy. To show us creatures how to make the inner and the outer a harmonious whole in all the myriad ways that Jesus brought his Father’s goodness to the world.
He who is the Light of the world invites humble men and women, creatures like ourselves, to share in his light and become, each in his or her own way, light-bearers, Kingdom-bearers.
As we walk ever-so-slowly into light, may we all yield our depths to the Light who is God. May we trustingly welcome the light to shed its rays of mercy and healing on the dark and secret places within. The places we hide from ourselves for our own reasons but which God sees and is moved, not with anger but with mercy and tenderness. His loving gaze is the seed of repentance. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” The Kingdom of God is ‘a meadow wide and sunny’ as we sing in a hymn about the Mother of God.
On this day of beginnings, this day of ‘the call’, maybe we can take some time to offer our depths to the loving light and warmth of God. To know that we are loved beyond measure, to open out to the light who is God and to become a ‘meadow wide and sunny’, a living kingdom of God. A place where our sisters and brothers can run in the freedom of the children of God and be for each other and the world a small beacon reflecting the light of Christ. This is our call – and our joy.