The Light of Life

The Word of God and Visions


Something interesting happened this morning as my prayer partner Deacon George and I prayed before the tabernacle at St. George Parish, here in London.


Every day, we pray for priests, religious and deacons in particular, but also for all people called by God to live in holiness, which includes all of us.  After we were finished with our prayers, Deacon George had a vision: well two actually.  In the first vision, he saw thousands and thousands of angels coming from the throne of God carrying a light from Christ, and approaching somebody here on earth.  When they reached their target person, they placed the light on the individual's head.  Often the individual rejected the light and pushed it away, but the angel persisted and would return the light to the individual's head again and again after each rejection.  But, finally for each person was an ultimate choice, to accept the light or to reject it for all time.


As well, while sitting in front of the tabernacle, Deacon George saw the same Light of Christ enter into the tabernacle, and into the communion hosts present there.  We both then saw what happened when people came to Communion.  That light entered them and then shone out from them, that Light of Christ.
 Now, I had just been praying the Divine Office with my friend, but the readings and psalms for the Office are not the same as the Mass readings for the day, and as I had just gotten up before going to prayer, I had not had a chance to see what today's readings were.  On my way back home, I was listening to Gus Lloyd's show "Seize the Day" on the Catholic Channel on XM Radio, and he was speaking about the readings for the day.  In fact, his 60 second reflection on the readings is here.


The Responsorial Psalm today is from Psalm 1, with the response from John 8:12

R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.


Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.


R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.


He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.


R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.


Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.


R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.

In the visions we saw this morning, were examples of God's light coming to His Chosen Ones.  God is not bound by only these ways to bring His Light to us, but they are ways that His Light does come.
When we receive His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we are receiving His Light, the light for all the world, and when we consume it, it then shines out from us for our brothers and sisters to see, to draw them to the light as well.  But, it is His Light, not our light, and as disciples it is not ours to hide, but to share.

When he places the light of a vocation on us, that too is His Light, meant to be received and to be shared with others, the light of being called and set apart.  Those calls include the call to religious life, the priesthood, diaconate and other religious vocations.  But, they also include the call to marriage, and even the single life.  But, above all they are calls to holiness, to be holy as He is holy.

Let us joyfully receive the Light of Christ inside us in the Eucharist, and let us receive upon us the light of our vocation in the Lord, and not push it away, running the risk of missing it.

Let us not be like the wicked in the psalm, where we will reject the Lord, and then be rejected in the end ourselves.  Let us receive His Light and live in the light.