Let There Be Light!

Dear Friend,

Last weekend, the final words of our final hymn were these: Let There Be Light! Processing out, I felt the music touching me inwardly. Just outside the threshold of the Mission Church, facing the Pacific Ocean, here I was, having a moment, as they say. It was the moment of creation described in the opening words of Genesis.

By happy coincidence, it was on Pentecost Sunday when magnificent chalk art drawings were exploding all across the asphalt of our Mission plaza. Standing on the front steps, I could see the blessed aftermath of I’Madonnari. Start your life again, an inward voice was saying to me. Let there be light… through you!

According to the late, great poet Seamus Heaney, in art and in life the three most important things are these: getting started, keeping going, and getting started again. While life never fits neatly into mental or verbal boxes, I do believe that Heaney’s words point to a helpful life-giving rhythm, especially, I would add for disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic tradition. Look at it this way, after the Lord’s Ascension, Pentecost gets us started; the energies of Holy Trinity keep us going; and the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (i.e. Corpus Christi) is all about getting us - and our world - started again.  

Every Sunday, Jesus Christ is for us the “first fruit” of a new creation. The garden of Paradise - our starting place - becomes our destination.  Fed with the “first fruits” each Sunday, we can confidently invite our world to start over again, as a place where sin and death are overcome by the real presence of love. As God’s splendid living image, we become a people who heal, feed, serve, and so love the world.

Gratefully,

Father Dan