The Jesuit Paleontologist (and indeed mystic) Teilhard de Chardin conceived of all creation in the universe as “glowing” with God – the presence of God was everywhere and in everything.  He was not saying that God WAS everything as in pantheism, but that God’s radiance shone through everything, as an incandescent flame beneath the “skin” of all life, like glowing metal heated to extreme temperatures.  Teilhard saw this in everything – from rocks to humans.  This was his idea of Incarnation.  The universe shines forth in diaphany (transparency) as God in Christ is coming to us in all things.  Teilhard specifies that although “nothing is more consistent or more fleeting… than a ray of light,” The “deep brilliance” or radiance with which Christ comes so us in this “divine environment” (milieu) does not destroy us, but in fact clarifies us and gives us depth in being and life.^[1]  This may sound very philosophical, but I believe the point is that Christ is present everywhere, as a radiant glow that we can either allow ourselves to see, receive and respond to or not.

I’m not convinced that today’s Scripture selections from Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time are not saying something similar to this.  In both the reading from Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, we hear images of light and how we relate to a God Who is lighting things up for us and who actually sent his Son into the universe to Be the Light for us.  But for us to receive this light, i.e., to really receive it, it has to flow through us in a transformative way – almost as if we are light bulbs awaiting the electricity of our God to “flip the switch.”  What was dark then can become light, and then we have to STAY with the light.  In fact, the more we allow the light to shine through us, we become the light in a sense just letting it shine!  Matthew (MT 5: 13-16) has Jesus telling us how foolish it would be to do otherwise:

“You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”

There is only one real “reason” for light, or so it would appear.  It travels – and boy does it travel!  Based upon what we can see as we look out into the universe, light has been traveling 13.8 billion years, and allowing us to see further and further into space.  So, it should not seem so odd that if we can be considered “luminaries” of  God’s loving action in the world, this would involve others necessarily.  We shine for each other.  In what seems to be dark times, this may seem implausible and sometimes even impossible.  But I believe it can be done.

Just think of how we receive light each day.  Each day, the darkness of the night fades as the sun appears on the horizon and the glow of a new day commences, lighting up everything and everyone with which we come into contact.  Even on gloomy days, there is light enough to see.  In parts of our world where the sunlight is scarce, it is perhaps even more appreciated when it does shine.  Flowers and trees seem to know how to take the best advantage of sunlight and its effects.  Yet, do WE see this?  Do we really see this light, and the great gift that it is – a shimmering sometimes timid smile from a God who waits for us to notice Him/Her?  Oftentimes it takes us to pause or stop, voluntarily or otherwise, to SEE the diaphany or transparence of God everywhere around us.  God is traveling Light years in Christ all around us in each moment, yet somehow we tend to miss it most of the time.

Now, when we see it, and receive it so that it jolts our “ordinary step” of life, it can transform us completely.  Curious things begin to happen – it’s not just the beautiful spring flowers that we see in our cultivated gardens that stir our hearts, but now, what perhaps once seemed “foreign” and foreboding (and even “ugly”) now is seen as something as wondrous and in need of caring attention as a flower.  Isaiah describes how receiving and responding to the Light of God as we become more and more capable of “seeing” quite specifically ( IS 58: 7-10):

“…Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed…”

The growing consciousness of the beauty of God in our world breaks down mindsets and heart-sets that embitter us toward each other and to our environment.  That Light that comes to us, starts to shine through us, and the inevitable consequence is precisely… feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless.  And let’s not just be literal about this.  How many times have you encountered someone who was “hungry” for compassion, or someone who needed a “home” in the company of your listening ear, or needed to be “clothed” with a hug wrapped around them in an intense moment of vulnerability?  Yes, the Light that shines through us is refracted through the prism of our own unique life experiences and encounters, and has the potential to “break forth like the dawn” in a magnificent rainbow of colors that, as Teilhard says, “clarifies” us and gives us depth in being…in being HEALED, as Isaiah says.

What if our universe is a mirror of God, as this Healing Light that crosses space in time and passes into us so that we can participate in the Light by healing each other?  Isn’t this one way of looking at even the idea of our God as Trinity.  We shine brilliantly in the Smile of God in Christ by allowing the Spirit to flow through us!  God is coming to us even now in the moment, lighting up our path, showing each one of us the prominent “way” in which our particular “color” will shine, and begging that we not avert the rays with “bushel baskets” of fear and ego-driven agendas.  It’s almost as if God IS this relationship of healing that we are all already participating in and being constantly invited to recognize and embrace and indeed develop this relationship more and more.

We all need healing and it is this radiant light of a Divine dawn that we are gifted with, which must always travel through us to others so that we all can really “See” each other within an ever-dawning Relationship of Love!

Peace

Thomas

The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth  woven and laced together in loving pattern  by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing  awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.

[1] Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, Perennial Classics ed.  (New York: Harper Collins, 2001)  pp. 104-105.