How Great Will the Darkness Be

June 22, 2012

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

Then Jehoiada (the priest) made a covenant between the Lord as one party and the king and the people as the other, by which they would be the Lord’s people; and another covenant, between the king and the people. Thereupon all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and demolished it. They shattered its altars and images completely, and slew Mattan, the priest of Baal, before the altars. (2 Kings 11:17-18)

The Lord has chosen Zion for his dwelling. (Psalms 132:13)

Jesus said to his disciples:"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be." (Matthew 6:19-23)

Piety

Jesus, I pray that my mind and heart and soul be opened to following You out of the darkness.

Study

A friend recently said someone had grumbled to him that it surely appeared the Catholic bishops are trying to destroy the Church. My friend’s response, at least half-jokingly, was, “Don’t worry. People have been trying to destroy the Church for two thousand years, and it hasn’t worked yet.”

It made me wonder about the amount of time some of us are spending wringing our hands and predicting doom and gloom, even saying doom and gloom are already here. If they are, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot we can do about it individually. But what we can do something about is our own relationship with Christ and our community. We can practice the Cursillo principles of piety, study, and action. We can reflect on our moments closest to Christ, what was good and strong and inspiring about them, as well as the moments where Christ met us on the journey and we were lacking. We can study the daily readings, the Bible, and other religious texts to better understand what the Lord desires of us and how great his love is for us. Our piety and our study inform our action, how we are bringing souls to the kingdom through outreach, through prayer, through living our lives in a manner pleasing to God.

And if we do those things, no matter how in darkness the world may appear, the prism through which we see this world will be sound, and we will be in the light.

Action

Pray for the priests, bishops, cardinals, the pope, and other religious leaders, that they may be filled with the Lord’s light.