WALKING IN THE DIVINE LIGHT

FRIDAY, TWENTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 

1 Tim 1:1-2,12-14; Ps 16:1-2,5,7-8,11; Lk 6:39-42

Our Ignorance without God’s Light

God is the light of our intellect and the true love of our hearts. The physical light is material and meant to illuminate the material world, so that the sense of sight can properly grasp the objects of its operations. The other senses are also different windows or doors through which our minds and hearts attend to creatures. The material creation is a ladder to the Creator, but not directly, for the way to God is not a material or sensible path. Our way to God is spiritual. Thus, material creation leads to God indirectly, through the path of wisdom, which orders their operations. The ordering of the material creation by wisdom produces a pattern in our minds, which moves our hearts through understanding to the love of things invisible. The ability to see and understand the path of wisdom in creation, and pattern our lives on it, is what the virtue of wisdom confers on us. Thus, we say that the wiseman orders all things to their proper end. Since, according to scripture, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, starting with the fact that the things we perceive through our senses are created by God, provides a good starting point to enter the path of wisdom. To walk in sin is to put aside this fact for any other beginning.

A good foundation does not guarantee safe arrival. We must focus on the teacher alone and not allow our own inclinations or desires to derail us from following him. The teacher is in the creation as nature, for St. Thomas Aquinas posits that God is in each thing according to its nature. Saint Paul also affirms this in his letter to the Colossians, when he says that Christ is everything and he is in everything. Lack of attention to the word of God, as the word of God, caused the Jews to derail from following God to following human traditions. Saint Paul acknowledged being a victim of error. He admitted to persecuting those on the path of truth in his ignorance. “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, and who judged me faithful enough to call me into his service even though I used to be a blasphemer and did all I could to injure and discredit the faith.” Because his intention was to do the will of God, but was deceived by the errors of his ancestors, God showed him mercy. “Mercy, however, was shown me, because until I became a believer I had been acting in ignorance; and the grace of our Lord filled me with faith and with the love that is in Christ Jesus.” God shows the same mercy to all who sincerely seek the way of truth and desire to please God with their lives. Eternal truth comes to those who desire to know and live by the will of God, because he puts the desire in each of us. The desire will never be in vain if it is not corrupted by our selfish desires. “Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you. I say to the Lord: ‘You are my God.’ O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup; it is you yourself who are my prize.”

The desire for divine truth and a longing to walk by its light are our spiritual eyes by which we see the divine teacher and follow him. We lose our spiritual sight to the extent that initial desire is corrupted with selfish interests. We are totally blind spiritually when there is no desire to encounter the truth, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, the Lord speaks to us about spiritual blindness. “Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher.” In other words, we must seek to remove selfish interest in following the Lord, for that will make us less of his disciples and turn us into premature masters. We must try daily to overcome this tendency to seek ourselves and seek the Lord in sincerity of purpose. When we are interested and occupied in finding and following him, there will be no room for seeing, judging, and condemning our brothers and sisters. “Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the splinter that is in your eye,’ when you cannot see the plank in your own? Sincerity in seeking the Lord enables us to acknowledge our struggles in those of our brothers and sisters. When we follow the Lord disinterestedly, he will achieve his purpose in us and make his home in us. Then, we would really be the sacrament of his presence. He will dwell in us, not in our own nature, but in his spiritual and divine nature. As the Lord affirms, “the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher.”

Let us pray: O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.