Rainbow light
Rainbow light
Seeing a perfect rainbow in a clear blue sky is a surprise to stop you in your tracks. It does not usually last, but long enough to remember God’s covenant with his people, symbolized by the bow in the sky (Genesis. 9:12). And God’s promises are never forgotten. The other day I seemed to be driving towards the centre of such a lovely sky phenomenon and began to think about the magic of colours and the light which makes them possible.
Then on Saturday evening arriving just in time for Mass, the choir was already singing the catchy line: “The light of Christ has come into the world.” Whatever the liturgists say,I feel that this tune dances, unlike the more solemn Easter chant: “Lumen Christi”, which has a different kind of beauty about it. It seems that we all crave light as suggested by our sinking November moods when approaching the shorter and darker Winter days. And in our northern climes phototherapy is thought to help some people with problems of depression. This must have been behind the ancient wisdom of the church when establishing the feast of St Lucy (a name which means ‘light’) on 13 December. This was formerly the winter solstice when, as John Donne wrote, “The world’s whole sap is sunk”.
But for all the seasonal darkness our ancestors, five thousand years ago, celebrated the cyclical return of the sun’s rising light at New Grange. They trusted in the warmth that would follow, to restore the cold earth to fruitfulness; and nothing has changed this, our human dependency. Now in late Spring we sacrifice a morning hour of sleep willingly enough, for the sake of some extra light stretching into the brighter evenings. In Australia they call this time change, “daylight saving”.
In another sense we do not need to spare it, since we now have the Light of the world always with us and only need to remind ourselves that we are called to be “children of the light”, radiating it to those we meet, as Cardinal Newman wrote: “Stay with me and I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be light to others; the light O Jesus will be all from you.”
