Points of Light

Today’s readings speak to a people fearful and anxious about the state of the world. The first reading offers hope: “The sun of justice will rise with its healing rays.” The Gospel warns against false leaders and empty promises that often emerge in troubled times. Yet even in hardship, Jesus sees opportunity—a moment to “give testimony” to a wisdom that no adversary can silence.

After Jesus’ death, his disciples felt abandoned and afraid. They locked themselves away, their faith dimmed by fear. But the dawning realization that God had raised Jesus from the dead empowered that fearful group. They went out into the world, proclaiming with courage that Jesus lives among us still through the presence of his Spirit. Their fear turned into witness; their weakness became strength. We are their descendants — heirs of that same faith, called to live it now with hope and conviction.

Dark currents of bigotry and violence — old and new — are again swirling through our society, dehumanizing rhetoric directed against immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, refugees, and the poor; mass forced deportations and global trade wars. In such times, the poet W. H. Auden wrote:

Our world in stupor lies;
Yet dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages...
Show an affirming flame.

We are called to be those points of light — those affirming flames — in a world dimmed by violence and despair. Every act of kindness, however small, is a seed of love planted in barren soil:

We are called to be those points of light — those affirming flames — in a world dimmed by violence and despair.

• a gay friend told me how touched he was by the Instagram posting of smiling priests warmly greeting Geo Benitez, ABC’s openly gay anchor, on the occasion of his baptism into a Church that does not always welcome our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
• while the administration went to court to block court-ordered food stamp funding, Jeff’s Table, a restaurant in Highland Park, offered free grilled cheese sandwiches to SNAP recipients.
• an anonymously placed bag of groceries on the front steps of a home where parents are afraid to leave because anonymous masked federal agents are indiscriminately sweeping up persons of color.
• today at 9 (it’s Sunday at the Vatican), Pope Leo is hosting a lunch with refugees, street persons, gay and transgender individuals, immigrants and other social outcasts as a sign that the Church stands with the poor and powerless.

We can surrender to hopelessness, retreat from politics. When we tell ourselves that faith concerns only saving “my soul,” and is not about redeeming the world from sin, the poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes reminds us:

Amidst the chaos and evil of the world,
you bring something different...
Hold steadfast to love;
That’s how you stay alive.

The Gospel affirms what our hearts know: we are created to love and to be loved. What unites us is not citizenship or ideology or a common religion but our shared humanity — the graced humanity we share with Jesus. That grace calls us to heal wounds, not inflict them; to stand with the poor and vulnerable, not against them. When we live the depth of our Spirit-infused humanity, we do as Jesus did: counter hate with love, violence with peace, lies with truth, and despair with hope. The measure of our faith is what we do, not what we say or think about God.

Our hope rests not in ourselves, but in the God who became one of us in Jesus — to show us the way, to walk with us through the world’s chaos. In raising up Jesus, God assures us that the flame within — the Spirit of love that drives and sustains us — will never be extinguished, not even by death.

May this Eucharist strengthen our faith and deepen our hope, so that we — Christ’s body — become ever clearer signs of God’s love and compassion, living points of light in the shadows of our world.