In all of our lives there is darkness and there is light – a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. It is a cycle and rhythm of life as natural and regular to our human experience as night and day. Yet we are called to journey out of darkness, to seek the light of God’s promise and His kingdom. Christ is our light and our hope, and to serve in hope is to serve as light.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, Christ teaches, and this is indeed the poverty most in need of our loving care. Those who suffer from worldly losses, such as a job, a car, the death of a family member, begin sometimes to dwell in the darkness of despair. Seeing no easy way out, they can lose sight of the fact that we all have the same way out. The question is where we wish to go when that time comes. It is not worldly rewards, but the reward of heaven that gives us true hope.

But each of us can only arrive at the truth in freedom. [CSDC, 135] When deprivation and suffering cloud our vision, we become separated from truth, seeking merely food, not goodness. Recognizing this, Frédéric wrote that “the poor are hungry, so we must first give them bread in order to dispose them to receiving the word of God.” [1457, Report, 1834] In our simple, selfless, and generous acts of charity, we proclaim the kingdom through our wordless witness. We serve for love alone.

It is God’s power alone to console, Frédéric said, for “To console is to draw forth the kind light of hope amid the chaos of pain, it is to break the chains atop a groaning and heavy heart, it is to heal a soul, it is a blessing whose dispensation is reserved to God.” [113bis, to La Perrière, 1836] When we act according to His will, serving the least among us, it is not our light that we share, but God’s. To truly serve in hope, we must seek to shine before others, that they may see our good deeds and glorify our heavenly Father.

St. Vincent taught that “visitations, made well and exactly, do what the sun does: they give light… Just as the sun spreads its influence over all creatures, it can also be said that the visitation benefits the entire family visited.” [CCD I:671] We may never know whether we have truly planted a seed of hope to illuminate the lives of our neighbors, but we can know that we made our best effort to alleviate the suffering that can lead to despair, that we did so purely for the love of God, and that we can trust the rest to Divine Providence.

As Vincentians, we seek both to see the face of Christ in the neighbor, and to be the face of Christ for the neighbor. To help us with this, perhaps we should remember that even as Christ declares that “I am the light of the world,” He tells us also that “you are the light of the world.”

Contemplate

How can I better shine a light before the world?

By Timothy Williams,
Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development
Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA.