Let the light enter in the darkness of winter
Fr Jason Murphy has a timely message for us all in his latest instalment of his popular column Let the Busy World Be Hushed...
The light of the winter sun as it stretches its rays from the world’s southernmost line of latitude, the tropic of Capricorn, is more beautiful than the sun that shines on a mid-summer’s day. On these frosty mornings of mid-December, the spectacular light of the sun as it rises illumines the darkest corners and transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary as it casts its light in the early morn. The hedgerows glisten brightly under a layer of frost-covered icing and the world is transformed from the darkness and gloom of winter to the most spectacular celebration of light in the time of the year when we need light most of all.
In the recent power cuts of Storm Darragh, which lasted for days, we came to truly appreciate the gift of light and how it has transformed our world and also to realise the all-encompassing power of darkness.
It’s no wonder then that the early neolithic people were so infatuated by the midwinter sun as it shone brightly through the chinks of darkness that hung over their world at this time of year. They were a people who appreciated the light and feared the all-consuming power of darkness, which, if it were to last, heralded the death of nature, their animals and indeed their very lives. It seemed that the world might continue to descend into darkness as the light of the sun decreased with each passing day and then a burst of light in the morning to give hope as the spectre of death loomed in nature all around.
Their great temple to the midwinter sun can be seen in the construction of the passage grave at Newgrange, which predates the pyramids of Egypt and wherein the ashes of their Kings were placed, deep down in the bowels of this huge man-made hill where light could not enter in albeit for a brief moment as the sun reached beyond the horizon on the shortest day of the year when it seemed that all might be lost. On that morning, the sun as it rises, is aligned with an opening above the entrance to the passageway that leads along into the darkened tomb, which symbolised death and there for the briefest moment the light travels along the passage way and when it reaches the inner chamber, the sun on this shortest day, illumines the darkest place of all with the most dazzling light, a light that lasts for the briefest moment but yet gave hope to the generations of people that followed thereafter; that even in the darkest time of year when death is all around, the weakest light dispels the darkness.
So when the early church deliberated over a date for the celebration of the Birth of Christ it seemed most appropriate, in a world that knew nothing of the southern hemisphere, to celebrate the ultimate Light coming into world at the darkest time of the year. It made sense for a people who first heard of the Saviour that with the birth of a little child, that the light increased in the days after Christmas as His message spread, a message of hope, of peace and of love, a message that could dispel the darkness and change people's hearts.
In these shortening days of Advent, we long for the light, not a superficial light but a light that penetrates the depths of our hearts, a light that illumines those crevices that other lights cannot enter into. For within us all, there are corners that lie hidden, parts of ourselves that we would rather not have the light to shine upon, so as to reveal to the world around what lies unseen; old wounds, hurts accumulated overtime that have left in their wake, deep scars. We have developed too, ways of being, far from the person we once thought we would be but so engrained have these behaviours become that they encase the true self in a cavern that is far from the reaches of the light.
Nevertheless, we yearn for the light, for healing and reconciliation, we yearn for the light to enter in to the darkest corners of our hearts. In this season of Advent when it might seem that the days are at their shortest and that darkness prevails, the light of the midwinter sun is a light that is different to all other lights, it is a light that is piercing, it penetrates the darkness, it can enter into the hidden chambers of a tomb of the dead and it can enter into the heart.
So let us align ourselves in this season of advent to the light, let us seek us it out and allow ourselves to forgive and be forgiven. Let us search for the voice of healing that will make its way to darkest caverns that yearn for the light and let us too be a light that brings healing and forgiveness in a time of midwinter when people yearn for others who despite all things carry forth the Light.
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