Reading of the holy gospel according to John. Jesus proclaimed aloud. Whoever puts faith in me believes not so much in me as in him who sent me. And whoever looks upon me is seeing who sent me. I have come into the world as its light to keep anyone who believes in me from remaining in the dark.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I am not the one to condemn him. For I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words already has his judge, namely the word that I have spoken. It is that which will condemn him on the last day, for I have not spoken on my own. No.
The father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to speak. Since I know that his commandment means eternal life, whatever I say is spoken just as he instructed me, and this is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Our blessed lord in this excerpt from Saint John explicitly say states that he came to be the light of the world, that those who accept him will not be in darkness. Now what the the what are we to make of this?
Because certainly at times we feel we're in the dark. We feel confused. We feel as if we've lost our way or at least we're uncertain of our way. We don't see the light or at least that's what we think we don't see the light. We're persuaded along those lines.
We're about to give up almost. But our and this isn't the only text, of course, where our blessed lord has likened himself to light. Now here we're back to some very primitive questions because you see some people can get along with a candle, and others need a 2,000 watt bulb to read the daily newspaper. We all know that. So right away, we're faced with an element which is extremely extremely relative.
Relative. And And furthermore, furthermore, how far must the light extend in into the dark distance? Cardinal Newman said, one step enough for me. One step. Not a mile, not two yards, one step.
Even a candle gives one candle gives almost that enough that that light sufficient to see one step. But you see, some of us want to have at least two full headlights blazing into a mile ahead. So what do we mean with this light? In fact, what do we mean? How does it work?
How does it shine on us? How do we get into contact with us? How do we recognize it? These are all very sensible questions, which people, of course, for the most part don't ask ask, much less answer. But they deserve answering.
If Christ says, I'm the light of the world, I don't want you to be in darkness. Well and you feel you are in darkness. You feel you are confused. You feel you don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Then how do you put these things together?
Well, one way of doing it just to close out your mind, oh, I can't understand any of that. That's that's for someone else to worry about. You go out and dig up the potatoes or get a drink or something. This is the we turn these things off. See, in many ways, we're living in a so called intellectual age, but in another way, we're far from it.
Just look at the second Vatican Council. In all of their discussions, how much of it is dogmatic? It's almost all, moral or something else. Very little of it is dogmatic. That is having to do with faith.
But you see, these questions, you can't avoid them. Not if you, not if you have a a mind that's a little bit alert. And it seems to me the the first thing is, what should we expect? What what have we a right to expect? If god says, I'm the light of the world, how far into that black distance does he light?
How much of it does he light up? And then what is the light? Because it isn't a beam coming out of a searchlight or a sealed beam coming out of an automobile front. What is it? First of all, I wanna come back to something on I said in my well chosen remarks Sunday about vocation.
How many people do you hear today seriously saying what I want to do is God's will? I'm talking about mostly the younger people. What you hear of plenty is finding myself, discovering myself, fulfilling myself. Well, how much do you hear of trying to do god's will, discovering god's will, knowing god's will? How much do you hear about that?
And yet if we accept the idea that there is a god who's running the show, and Christ said not a hair falls from your head without your heavenly father, Now that's a pretty severe statement to me. If Christ said that and meant it, then we certainly have to accept the fact that our lives are certainly within the control of divine providence. In other words, we have a job to do in this. We have a calling. May that not be the light?
How do you know you have a calling? What are the signs? Well, we've gone through a lot of of discussion and controversy about that. But how do you know that a man or a woman is called to the married state? Well, look at how they're living.
Are you going to ask, are they finding fulfillment in each other? Have they discovered themselves? How are they happy? That's the thing. Are they happy?
Are these the questions? These are the questions which are asked. And yet are they the right questions for a Christian? Is that the light you're looking for, to find yourself or fulfilling yourself? Most of the people who use these expressions, you say, well, what do you mean by fulfilling yourself?
You're it's a dead end. You're right and I'm not I'm not theorizing at all. So this light or take a a young man or a young woman, they have an idea that they want that they might have a calling to be a priest or a nun or a brother. How do they know they have a calling? Try it.
It's that simple. Try it. And if you fulfill the requirements, you're in. And if a superior who's running the show invites you very graciously that the order could get along without you quite well, get out. It's that simple.
There's nothing opaque about it. But you see, when you hold up if you're going to have some kind of an idea that life's values are going to be gauged in terms of what we call fulfillment or status personal satisfaction or joy or happiness, all you can say about that is it is utterly unchristian. Utterly unchristian. I mentioned recently this article in the Washington Post about the Ellis family. Read it.
It was in the Sunday edition. Here you will see a man and a woman vigorously, energetically, sacrificially pursuing certain goals of life. The American dream. Well, if that's the American dream, look what it's wound up in. Six murders, they had everything.
Their dream came true. What do they have? So when when when our blessed lord says, I'm the light of the world, ask yourself, in your life, not in somebody else's life, but in your life, what do you expect? What guidance do you expect? Where do you expect to find it?
That's a very serious question that demands an answer, and there is an answer. Not an easy one or or but it's not too difficult either. After all, Christ gave us his church, a living voice. And so when blessed lord promised to be the light of the world to dispel darkness, he meant that. He meant it.
But remember, you can cut the sun out with your little finger. All you have to do is hold the finger close enough to your eye and you can blot out the sun. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.