Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine,
Let it shine, Let it shine.
—Black spiritual and an anthem of the civil rights movement
"No one lights a lamp, conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, they place it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.” - Today’s Gospel acclamation verse.
The light of Christ reveals itself sometimes in unexpected and wonderful ways.
Following the whirlwind papacy of Pius XII, the conclave of 1958 elected a “harmless, stop gap, caretaker pope,” or so they thought. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas: the mantle fell on 77 year old Angelo Guisepe Roncalli. His task was to wave at the crowds and appoint new cardinals (the sacred college was depleted in the later years of Pius XII). Most of all he was to make no waves.
To everyone’s surprise John called an ecumenical council (all 2,500 of the world’s bishops) gathering in Octobers of 1962-1965. Angelo (now John XXIII) said the idea for Vatican Council II came to him “like a bolt of lightning.”
In the mid-20th century our church had evolved into “Fortress Church,” warning all to get aboard the “bark of Peter,” before it was too late. The world was evil and the Catholic Church was the only safe harbor. Relations with other Christians were adversarial. Fresh from the horrors of World War II, we had closed in on ourselves. John’s response? — “We are afraid that we must disagree with the prophets of doom. It is only dawn.”
The perilous Cold War had come to a head as John’s Council (Vatican II) gathered, in the form of the Cuban missile crisis. Whatever the church had been doing in the modern era it didn’t have impact enough to keep the world from the edge of oblivion.
In response to such madness, the 2,500 council fathers promulgated (among others) the document Lumen Gentium, “Light of all the nations.” In this document, we are reminded of our Christ light mission to be a servant to the world and a sacrament to the world. Yes, there is evil in the world but the world is essentially good because it was created by the hand of a good God.
Illuminating our Christ light is the vocation of all the baptized. But how does this work in the nitty-gritty where we live? As the beautiful Methodist mantra inspires, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, as long as ever you can.”
Everywhere I go I’m gonna make it shine!
Lumen Christi! Lumen Gentium! Let our Christ light shine wherever, whenever, and with whomever we find ourselves. May the hopefulness, foresight and courage of Pope Saint John XXIII inspire us to this end.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
—Timothy J. Cronin