We humans have a fascination with fire and light. I see it all the time whenever I say a Pascal fire, or a candle at baptism, or just turning on lights or having large windows in houses. We love light and when there is lots of light our moods tend to be happier and joyful. We say it is a beautiful day when it is sunny. It is when it is dark or gloomily, we are scared or not happy or not in a good mood. The light is what brings us joy.
Christ is our light, he is the one that shines through the darkness, and we have seen a great light. Light is everywhere in scriptures that is because we humans need God to be our shining light to bring back our attention. We can get easily distracted by things of the world, or the false light, they are not bad but take our attention away from the true light which is Christ. He is shining before us forever to show us the way to God, sometimes we follow the true light and sometimes we follow the false light of the world.
Once we realize what is the true light, we can focus or at times refocus our attention on what truly matters, which is following Christ, who is calling us each by name to move away from the false light to himself. Brothers and sisters, we need to realize what is the most important thing in our lives, which is following the true light and not being distracted by the world.
If you look around the world, you will see divisions, one nation against another, one family members against each other. It is like the world has lost its purpose. It can be an easy to look at what is happening right in front of our eyes, like a family member saying something, to be the end all be all, but that is not where our attention should be. Our attentions and focus should be on God and God alone. Everything in the world is just a distraction from what truly matters, God and God alone. The false light will always be there to tempt us to follow it and not God and God alone. The more we realize it the better our lives will be.
Brothers and sisters, what is it that you can do to stay away from the false light that is a distraction from our true light? What is it that you can change in your life to move away from the world towards God? What is it that can make us understand the world is just trying to get us away from God? What is it that can change our minds to remember where our goal is? Whatever it is, let God be your guide because it is only through him and him alone that we can realize the world is just a distraction from the true light which is Christ.
Given on Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A