Light spaces

Ever since he came into her life, she is a woman transformed. She glows with womanly confidence, comfortable at last in her own skin for she is a woman loved with such tender intensity and kindness that she wakes up each day with eager purpose.

The chains of her less than enviable past no longer hobble her. She can live freely in the present, knowing exactly what her future holds, days spent in the company of a man who encourages her to dream big and walk tall.

She would follow him to the ends of the earth. Or to his death, as it turned out. His last days were marked with gross injustice, extreme humiliation and excruciating torture, when all she could do was stand by and watch in helpless desolation.

When he drew his last breath, nailed to the cross, all the lights went out and darkness ruled her world.

Unable to sleep, she crept out in the still inky dawn to visit the tomb where they had laid his body. As she approached the tomb, she saw that the huge stone covering the entrance had been rolled away. She hurried through the mouth of the tomb in alarm and cried out in anguish when she found it empty.

So wrapped up in her own grief she could not recognize his face, she could scarcely believe her ears when she heard HIS voice call out, "Mary".

"Rabbouni!" In delicious confusion and a growing lightness of heart, she hugged him tightly, refusing to let go for fear he would disappear from her life again.

Gently he removed her arms from around his waist, kissed her on her forehead and whispered, "Do not cling on," for he would always be with her, in ways she was yet to discover but would find radically life-changing and liberating.

I find this early morning visit by Mary Magdalene to the tomb, and her subsequent encounter with the resurrected Lord, captures the meaning of Lent and Easter for me.

While her journey from the healing of enlightenment into the darkness of death and loss marks the Lenten period; the words Christ utters upon their meeting is the invitation of Easter to go deeper into the light of the Resurrection.

Life is temporal and ever-fluid and as pilgrims on the highways and byroads of life, we would do well not to get too attached to things material or metaphysical.

Every day our beliefs are challenged. Old ideas must constantly give way to the new. I am not the same person I was yesterday, so why cling on to previous suffocating ways or former crippling attitudes?

In the daily struggle to sift out light from darkness, bad from good, equilibrium is a concept best reserved for academia: it does not apply to real life.

Just when I think I have got a handle on life, it escapes from my grasp like quicksilver. Just when I feel everything is smooth sailing, something will happen to curdle the cream of my contentment. That's the nature of life on earth - it is a bumpy ride with peaks and troughs.

But if I cultivate a faith that is constantly seeking to be reborn, malleable in its humility, the beams of truth will eventually illumine my senses, imperceptible at first, but undeniable as time goes by.

The glimmers of understanding that suffused MM's whole being with joy - as Pope Benedict preached in his Holy Saturday homily - is light that makes life possible and enables the possibility of many other things: the possibility of encounter and communication, in order that knowledge, reality and truth take form, giving birth to freedom and progress.

Light that is fundamental to creation. Pope Benedict says it best in his commentary on the story of creation in Genesis:

Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence through denial. It is a “no”.

Although my Lenten season has been one surrounded by darkness for everywhere I turn, I see death, loss, suffering and sorrow, the light of the Easter vigil candle reminded me that darkness does not reign, and death is not the end of the road but the inception of new life.

Like MM, I need to say no to clinging on and yes to space for light, so that His truth can breathe and live in me.

Following the leader

I realize that my last three entries are about prayer and at the risk of sounding boring, this one will follow suit.

Margaret Silf maintains that the more we pray, the more we realize how little we know - about prayer and how to pray.

She is right for I find praying, prayer, a real mystery and I write so much about it for I keep trying to make sense of it for myself.

I always feel that my efforts fall short for my mind wanders far too much for me to be able to say I actually sat in stillness successfully.

When I pray, I seem to have the attention span of a gnat and flit from one thought to another in a nano second. Why can't I get it right? And then there is the question what is the right way to pray?

Should I go devotional and pray the rosary? Or do lectio and reflect on the daily readings, maybe coupling it with an examen on the day's happenings? What should I record in my journal? And who do I pray for today and have I remembered everyone? Divine Office? Eucharistic adoration? Mass? Meditation?

Plus, most of the time, I never feel as if I had spent enough time in prayer for so many other things require my attention or prove too distracting.

I persist mainly because even in my imperfect prayer attempts, He is gracious enough to speak to me and impart words of wisdom. I am transformed by even the one minute I turn my heart inward and acknowledge His presence in my life.

My morning prayers help me set my focus right for the day: a Christ-centred mindfulness that steers my actions throughout the day. And prayer later in the evening assists me in connecting the dots of a day filled with seemingly random events in order give thanks for all that has transpired.

While watching TV last week, someone made this comment that the purpose of life is to live with purpose. Prayer is what guides and energizes my efforts to live true to my gifts and my calling. It is easy to be worn down by the daily grind or give in to despair when obstacles present themselves, so prayer is the necessary antidote.

Even though I will never be able to thank God appropriately or sufficiently in thought, word or deed, I will not stop trying, even as I grow increasingly lost.

As long as I follow His lead, I will, somehow, find my way.