Christ our light

Last evening we had our first ever Lucernarium - night prayer in the dark.  We had about 35 folks come by during this crazy time of year for a quiet moment of prayer and reflection.  Ms. Foley of our theology department helped organize the music which was provided by:

Matt DeSchuiteneer '14
Kira Duffy '13
Victoria Fatukasi '16
Joe Lamontagne '14 (keyboard)
Catrina Sylvia '15

The music (and the whole service really) came from the University of Notre Dame (for the record I obtained permission and legal copyright to use the songs!). 

The service consisted of prayer, a reading (read by Allison Doherty '14), a reflection by me, intercessions, and lighting of everyone's candles as we sang the Canticle of Simeon.  There are three great canticles that the church prays everyday - at morning prayer (Canticle of Zechariah), at evening prayer (Canticle of Mary), and at night prayer (Canticle of Simeon).  We prayed all three in our chapel this Advent at our three prayer services as they all have an Advent "theme" to them and they each come from the infancy narratives in Luke's gospel.

I am grateful to everyone who came last evening.  Hopefully we will do this again during Lent.

Here is the reflection I offered:


I don’t know about you but I have been having hard time waking up lately.  Some mornings it is so dark outside that I find it hard to believe it’s 6:00am, praying that it’s really more like 3am and my eyes are too blurry to read the clock correctly.  But the reality is that for the past 6 months, it has been getting darker and darker every day and next Friday, we will experience the shortest and darkest day of the year.  

But the good news is that come next Saturday, the days will start getting longer again.  The darkness will begin to decrease little by little every day as the amount of daylight will begin to increase.

We don’t know exactly when Jesus Christ was born but it’s no accident that we celebrate his birth on December 25, just a few days after the darkest and more depressing day of the year.  Christmas comes just in the nick of time - at a period when the darkness we’ve been experiencing is getting less and less, and our days are becoming brighter, and our moods and feelings are improving.

Jesus Christ shattered the darkness of sin and death and has restored eternal light and life to humanity.  Because of Him, we are, as our reading said, no longer “people walk[ing] in darkness.”  Rather, we have truly “seen a great light” which has brought us “abundant joy and great rejoicing.”  

In just a few moments, this dark chapel will be illuminated with the light of Jesus Christ.  This will be symbolic of what we are going to celebrate on December 25, when once again we will recall that time when Christ our Light illuminated our darkened world.  And it can’t come soon enough!


Amen.