Light and Love Incarnate

Some years ago, I was interviewing for a leadership position in a Catholic school when a religious brother on the panel asked me what I thought of the founding charism of the school (i.e. the particular expression of faith that his order of brothers brought to their ministry).

I replied that I see charisms a bit like stained-glass windows. Each colour casts a particular hue on the world, but that no matter which colour we look through, it is the same light, and the same world that we see.

In John's Gospel Jesus proclaims boldly, I am the light of the world. Given the context of how images of light are used in the Old Testament, this is nothing less than a bold declaration of Jesus' divinity. And this is consistent with John's theology that Jesus is the incarnate presence of God in our world.

So, what are we to make of it when Jesus tells His disciples in this Sunday's Gospel, YOU are the light of the world?

It's not some radical declaration that we are all gods - makers of our own reality and judges of our own morality. That would be completely incompatible with the rest of the Gospel. Rather, it is a call to conform our own lives as closely as we can to both the teaching and the lived example of Jesus, so that when people see us, they see Him through us - or as it is expressed in the reading - that seeing your good works, others may know and give praise to your Father in heaven.

Last week we heard Jesus call us to action in the Beatitudes. A call that would resonate happily with any fundamentally secular, social agency. This week though the Gospel underlines for me why we are called to do good works - because the people that we are called to serve are created, known and loved by God, as are we.

In the words of the late Pope John XXIII, we are called to be the living, loving face of God to a world in need. Doing good works AND making God's love incarnate to all.

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